The results showed that those women with the highest amounts of lycopene in their blood had half the risk of cardiovascular disease seen in those with low levels of the carotenoid. The determinants of lycopene in the blood do however need to be better understood, cautioned the researchers.
Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant that gives tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables their red color. It has also been linked to reduced risk of prostate cancer and sales of the ingredient in Europe are now worth $34 million. But it has rarely been tested in prospective studies for its role in cardiovascular disease prevention.
Writing in January's issue of the American Journal of clinical Nutrition, (vol 79, no 1, 47-53) researchers from the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston collected blood samples from 28, 375 women men initially free of heart disease and cancer in the Women's Health Study. During a mean of 4.8 years of follow-up, they identified 483 cardiovascular disease cases and 483 control subjects matched by age, smoking status, and follow-up time. Plasma lycopene, other carotenoids, retinol, and total cholesterol were measured.
The women in the upper three quartiles of lycopene levels had a significant multivariate 50 per cent risk reduction compared with those in the lowest quartile, write the researchers. But risk was not inversely associated with increasing levels of plasma carotenoids.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death of women in the US, the UK and most other developed nations. In 2001 coronary heart disease killed 54,000 women in the UK, more than four times that of breast cancer, according to the British Heart Foundation.