|
Lycopene And Prostate Cancer Prevention -
A Less Optimistic Report
(July 2007)
If you are loading up
on lycopene as a hedge against prostate cancer, it better be largely
because you really like tomatoes. The lycopene stock is highly volatile,
with a recent sell-off due to a large study conducted by the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, "Serum Lycopene, Other Carotinoids,
and Prostate Cancer Risk: a Nested Case-Control Study in the Prostate,
Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial", Cancer
Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev, May 2007. The short conclusion: "...these
results suggest that lycopene or tomato-based regimens will not be
effective for prevention of prostate cancer." This finding was in
contrast to the earlier boost for lycopene from the 2003 meta-analysis
which found a 10% - 20% reduction in prostate cancer risk from a high
tomato and lycopene intake, "weighted strongly by findings from the
large Health Professionals Follow-up Study". The Health Professionals
studies found high lycopene levels associated with less aggressive
prostate cancer, and less prostate cancer in men 65 years or older and
in men with a family history of prostate cancer. The hope for a
protective benefit from lycopene, the most potent antioxidant carotenoid,
80% derived from tomato products, was that it would combat the free
radical oxidative stress to the prostate that results from androgen
exposure over time.
In the Hutchinson's
prospective study 692 prostate cancer patients were compared with 844
matched controls and found that "No association was observed between
serum lycopene and total prostate cancer [odds ratio, 1.14] for the
highest versus the lowest quintile," and no association with
aggressive prostate cancer. The eight-year study followed participants
who "were selected from those who were assigned to annual standardized
screening for prostate cancer." Conclusion: no support for lycopene in
prostate cancer prevention.
So, Lycopene ... Is it
a hold or a sell?
«
Back to Article List |
