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13.06.2021

Meta-study determines the protective effect of lycopene against prostate cancer

For years, news media bombarded readers with reports of studies in which lycopene, a compound in tomatoes, protects men against prostate cancer. In 2005, Chinese researchers published a meta-study in which they pieced together the results of those studies and re-analyzed them.

Study
Urologists at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University collected 26 studies in which researchers looked at the link between lycopene intake and prostate cancer. In this way they obtained the data of more than half a million men.

Results
Men who consumed a relatively large amount of lycopene had a 9 percent lower risk of prostate cancer than men with relatively little lycopene in their diet. That is what the figure below tells you.

There is a trend, but not a statistically significant relationship. The p is 0.078.

When the researchers removed a study with anomalous outcomes from their analysis, the trend was statistically significant, as you can see in the figure above. According to this second analysis, a diet with a relatively high amount of lycopene reduces the risk of prostate cancer by 6 percent.

Below you can see the estimated association between the daily intake of lycopene and prostate cancer. To give you some perspective, a glass of tomato juice contains about 15 milligrams of lycopene.

Conclusion
"In summary, our dose response meta-analysis indicates a significant linear dose response association between lycopene intake and prostate cancer risk, but a significant nonlinear dose response association between circulating concentrations and prostate cancer risk", summarize the researchers.

"Further high quality research data are required to substantiate these conclusions in populations with high lycopene intake and circulating concentrations."

Source:
Medicine (Baltimore). 2015 Aug;94(33):e1260.

More:
Lycopene lowers blood pressure 06.08.2018
Enhanced with lycopene, Natural Killer Cells are better cancer fighters 01.01.2018
Lycopene and beta-carotene protect against heart attacks 16.10.2015

Archives:
Preventing & Surviving Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Carotenoids
Tomato

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