What every man should know about De Niro, tomatoes and their prostate…Robert De Niro is one of my favorite actors. He also stars in two of my favorite films — Heat and Ronin (which, with due respect to Bullitt and The French Connection, has the best car chase in cinema history). So, it came as a shock to me when I heard that De Niro had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Prostate cancerThe causes of prostate cancer are not well understood. It's very difficult to explain why one man gets prostate cancer and another doesn't. Other than skin cancer, it's the most common type of cancer in men in the United States. Of all the men who are diagnosed with cancer each year, more than one-fourth have prostate cancer. In the United States, prostate cancer is found mainly in men over age 55. The average age of patients at the time of diagnosis is 70. The prostate is a gland about the size of a walnut. It's located just below the bladder. The first sign of prostate cancer is usually problems passing water — usually an increased frequency or difficulty maintaining a full stream. That's the bad news. The good news is that there's an exciting body of evidence to show that several components of the humble tomato act together to help fight prostate cancer. It had been thought just one chemical, lycopene (pronounced lie-co-peen) was responsible. But researchers at the Universities of Illinois and Ohio State found lycopene's effect is boosted by other chemicals in the fruit. The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests lycopene-only dietary supplements have a limited effect [2]. "It has been unclear whether lycopene itself is protective," says researcher Professor John Erdman. "This study suggests that lycopene is one factor involved in reducing the risk of prostate cancer. But it also suggests that taking lycopene as a dietary supplement is not as effective as eating whole tomatoes." LycopeneLycopene, the substance that makes tomatoes red, is effective at mopping up particles called free radicals, which can damage the body's tissues. Free radicals are molecules with an unpaired electron. Although they've been implicated in many diseases, free radicals are a normal part of your body chemistry, and can help to keep you healthy. White blood cells, for example, use free radicals to "attack" viruses and bacteria. Optimal health, however, requires a balance between free radical generation and antioxidant protection. One of the functions of an antioxidant is to "quench" these free radicals before they create too much damage. Slice an apple in half, and watch it turn brown. That's an example of free radical damage. Dip the apple in lemon juice, and the rate at which it turns brown is slowed. That's because the vitamin C in the lemon juice slows the rate of oxidative damage. The researchers exposed laboratory rats to a chemical that causes prostate cancer, and then fed them on diets containing whole tomato powder, pure lycopene or no lycopene at all. Rats fed tomato powder had a lower risk of dying from their cancer than rats who ate no lycopene. But the rats fed lycopene had a risk similar to control rats. By the end of the study, prostate cancer had killed 8 out of 10 of the control group, 7 out of 10 of the lycopene-fed rats and 6 out of 10 of the rats fed tomato powder. The researchers also found that restricting the amount of food given to the rats cut their risk of developing prostate cancer, regardless of which diet they were on. Research by a separate group confirms the beneficial effect of whole tomatoes. Phyllis Bowen, associate professor of human nutrition, together with colleagues from the University of Illinois at Chicago, studied a group of 32 prostate cancer patients who consumed one tomato sauce-based pasta dish daily for three weeks [1]. Free radical damage and prostate specific antigen, or PSA levels, were measured before and after the pasta regimen. Previous studies suggest that human prostate tissue is particularly vulnerable to free radical damage. This can lead to the formation of malignant tumors. A high level of lycopene was present in the prostate tissues after the study. Free radical damage was reduced by 28%, while prostate specific antigen levels dropped by 17.5%. Although some consider PSA to be an important marker for the diagnosis of prostate cancer, others suggest that PSA testing is too unreliable to be recommended to patients. The PSA test was developed and validated by Dr. Thomas Stamey and colleagues at Stanford University in the early 1980s and was hailed as a great breakthrough in the fight against prostate cancer. In October 2004, however, Dr. Stamey and his group declared that, "The prostate specific antigen era in the United States is over for prostate cancer." [4] PhytochemicalsYou might see lycopene referred to as a phytochemical. The term "phyto" (pronounced fight-o) comes from the Greek word meaning plant. You'll see the terms "phytochemical" and "phytonutrient" used interchangeably. They both mean essentially the same thing. Of all the phytonutrients, we probably know the most about carotenoids (pronounced ka-rot-en-oids). They make tomatoes red, carrots orange and corn yellow. The work of Dr Rui Hai Liu, assistant professor of food science at Cornell University, shows that heating certain foods increases the availability of some phytonutrients. This contrasts with the conventional wisdom suggesting that cooking vegetables reduces their nutritional value. Cooking tomatoes actually triggers a rise in total antioxidant activity, mainly due to an increase in lycopene [3]. Tomatoes, of course, are not a "magic bullet", and don't represent a simple solution to what is clearly a complex problem. But a diet that includes cooked tomatoes does appear to be an important nutritional "weapon" in the fight against prostate cancer. If you're healthy and you want to stay that way, more information about the link between diet and disease is available here (The Atkins Diet made healthy), here (The dangers and benefits of vitamin C) and here (The paleo diet made simple). Related Articles
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