By IANS,
New York : The dehydrated version of the ubiquitous tomato could be the key to unlock its prostate cancer fighting potential, according to a study.
The greatest protective effect apparently from tomatoes comes by rehydrating its powder into tomato paste, according to Valeri V. Mossine of the University of Missouri, who conducted the study.
Although the protective effect against prostate cancer has been suggested in many studies, researchers have remained uncertain about the exact mechanism of how this happened.
Mossine and colleagues demonstrated that FruHis, an organic carbohydrate present in dehydrated tomato products, exerts a strong protective effect.
In the study, rats were divided into groups of 20 and fed a control diet comprising tomato paste, tomato powder or tomato paste plus additional FruHis. All animals were then injected with prostate cancer-causing chemicals.
Animals fed the tomato paste and FruHis diet had the longest survival from cancer at 51 weeks, compared with 50 weeks in the tomato powder group, 45 weeks in the tomato paste alone group and 40 weeks in the control group.
Prostate tumours were found in 10 percent of the rats that had been given a combination of tomato paste and FruHis, compared with 30 percent of animals in the tomato powder group, 25 percent in the tomato paste alone group and 60 percent in the control group.
Mossine and colleagues evaluated the anti-cancer properties of FruHis and 14 other D-fructose amino acids and found that FruHis in a concentrated form protected against DNA damage known to lead to prostate cancer.
When combined with lycopene, FruHis stopped cancerous cell growth more than 98 percent of the time.
The findings of the study are slated to appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal Cancer Research.