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Department of Food Science and Microbiology, Division of Human Nutrition, University of Milan, Italy
2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: marisa.porrini{at}unimi.it.
KEY WORDS: • lycopene • tomatoes • human • intake
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 TOP EXPANDED ABSTRACT CONCLUSIONSLITERATURE CITED |
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Mean dietary intakes of lycopene estimated by FFQs are generally higher than those obtained with diet records (11). The high intakes obtained using the FFQ method may result from a tendency of subjects to overestimate consumption of vegetables and fruits when presented with a long list of food items. FFQs have been reported to overestimate carotenoid intakes by 10–30% relative to estimated records and by 38–50% relative to weighed records (5,6).
Another important aspect to consider is that any given food source may vary greatly in lycopene content, because of differences in cultivar, technological processing, domestic cooking, etc. This variability also affects values reported in food databases. One of the most complete databases for carotenoids is the Carotenoids Dataset within the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (12), but there are other published data on the carotenoid content of selected foods (Table 3). In this regard, it is interesting to underscore the large variability in the lycopene content of raw tomatoes and of tomato paste and puree reported by various authors.
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65 g (15), and, in the United Kingdom, Scotland, and Wales, it is 30 g (16). The contribution of individual tomato products to lycopene intake varies nationally and regionally (Table 4), but available studies indicate that only a few food products account for most of the lycopene intake. Raw tomatoes seem to be the major contributors to lycopene intake in France, United Kingdom, and Spain (3) and also in different regions of Italy (Krogh and Sieri of the Italian EPIC group, personal communication). The second most dominant source is generally cooked tomatoes, whereas pizza contributes more to lycopene intake in France, Ireland, United Kingdom, and The Netherlands than in Italy. In Spain, tomato puree used for the preparation of mixed dishes is the second leading source of lycopene, and, interestingly, the consumption of watermelon in summer contributes significantly to carotenoid intake. In the United States, the main lycopene source seems to be pasta sauce (17).
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The relation between dietary intake of lycopene and plasma lycopene concentrations is weak (Tables 1, and 2). Plasma lycopene concentrations are never strongly correlated with estimated dietary intake (r = 0.0–0.46). Numerous potentially important determinants of blood-lycopene concentrations have been analyzed, including gender, smoking status, alcohol consumption, lycopene dietary intake, plasma cholesterol, BMI, race or ethnicity, seasonality, and marital status. Although up to 38% of the variance in plasma lycopene concentrations has been explained by these variables (18), a large proportion of the variance remains unexplained. The lack of correlation may also depend on other factors, such as the timing of blood col-lection in relation to dietary assessment, the impact of recent lycopene intake (which may significantly affect plasma lycopene concentration in the subsequent 12–24 h), the difference in absorption related to age and genetics (lycopene absorption seems impaired in the elderly), and the individual absorption capacity (it is suggested that some individuals are relatively poor absorbers).
The ideal intake of tomatoes is currently unknown, although there are suggestions from epidemiological and intervention studies that intakes of lycopene higher than 6 mg/d may produce plasma lycopene concentrations that provide protection. In our intervention studies (19–22), the intake of different tomato products providing 6–8 mg lycopene/d significantly improved lymphocyte protection from DNA oxidative damage and decreased LDL susceptibility to oxidation (Table 5). Furthermore, a decrease in insulin-like growth factor 1 was reported in a group of healthy subjects who consumed 250 mL tomato drink for 26 d (unpublished data).
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It remains to be demonstrated whether the protection ascribed to tomato consumption depends on the intake of lycopene alone. Recent studies support an effect of the whole tomato products instead of that of the single compound. For example, we found a significant increase in lymphocyte vitamin C concentration (230%) after the intake of small amounts of various tomato products (20) and a significant increase in phytoene and phytofluene (92% and 61% in plasma, respectively, and 159% and 84% in lymphocytes, respectively) after the intake of a tomato beverage (21). Lycopene may be one of the active substances that work in synergy to afford the protection observed. This suggests that the more relevant question is how many tomatoes and/or tomato products we should eat, instead of how much lycopene we need.
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CONCLUSIONS |
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TOPEXPANDED ABSTRACTCONCLUSIONSLITERATURE CITED |
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FOOTNOTES |
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LITERATURE CITED |
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TOPEXPANDED ABSTRACTCONCLUSIONSLITERATURE CITED |
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