Tomatoes are one of the vegetables (aka fruits?) that I grew up eating. My family served tomatoes in one form or another at nearly every meal. They are delicious and so very versatile. So it was a delight to discover that they may also provide some protection from breast cancer too.
As women reach menopause, their body mass typically increases, which puts them at greater risk of breast cancer. But a constituent of tomatoes, adiponectin, has been shown in recent studies to reduce breast cancer risk. That is great news for those of us that love tomatoes.
“The advantages of eating plenty of tomatoes and tomato-based products, even for a short period, were evident in our findings,” says Adana Llanos, assistant professor of epidemiology at Rutgers and a research member at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Llanos was a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center when she conducted the research.
The study also found that the benefits of eating tomatoes increase when the person maintains a healthy body weight.
Futurity: “The take-home message from our study’s preliminary findings is that the beneficial effects of a diet high in lycopene, specifically increasing adiponectin, may explain why tomatoes may be effective at reducing breast cancer risk.”
Be sure to check out the full page about tomatoes to discover their other health enhancing properties!
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