Lycopene ‘Pill’ Could Boost Heart Health

Lisa Franchi June 10, 2014

A pill containing lycopene – a compound that gives tomato its colour – may keep heart disease at bay, according to British researchers.

The study, which tested the tomato pill versus a dummy drug in 72 adults, found it improved the functioning of blood vessels. However, researchers said more studies are needed to prove it really works.

Experts have suspected for some time that lycopene might be good for avoiding illnesses, including certain cancers and cardiovascular disease. There is also some evidence that eating a Mediterranean-style diet, which is rich in tomatoes (as well as other fruit and vegetables and olive oil), is beneficial for health.

And whilst following a healthy diet is still advisable, scientists have been researching whether there is a way to put at least some of this good stuff into an easy-to-take pill. In connection with this, a spin-off company from the University of Cambridge - Cambridge Theranostics (CTL) - has come up with its own "tomato pill".

A team at Cambridge University, working independently and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the British Heart Foundation and the National Institute of Health Research, set out to see if the pill would have the desired effect.

They recruited 36 volunteers known to have heart disease and 36 "healthy" controls, who were all given a daily tablet to take, which was either the tomato pill or a placebo. To ensure a fairer trial, neither the volunteers nor the researchers were told what the tablets actually contained until after the two-month study had ended and the results were in.

For comparison, the researchers measured something called forearm blood flow, which is predictive of future cardiovascular risk because narrowed blood vessels can lead to heart attack and stroke.

In the heart disease patients, the tomato pill improved forearm blood flow significantly, while the placebo did not.

However, the pill doesn’t have an effect on blood pressure, arterial stiffness or levels of fats in the blood.

"A daily ’tomato pill’ is not a substitute for other treatments, but may provide added benefits when taken alongside other medication.” says Dr Joseph Cheriyan, the lead author of the study.

"However, we cannot answer if this may reduce heart disease - this would need much larger trials to investigate outcomes more carefully."

The study published in the journal PLoS One.

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’Tomato pill’ hope for stopping heart disease