Tomato pill-hope for stopping heart disease
June 14 BBC
Taking a tomato pill a day could help keep heart disease at bay, say
UK scientists who have carried out a small but robust study.
The trial, which tested the tomato pill versus a dummy drug in 72
adults, found it improved the functioning of blood vessels.
But experts say more studies are needed to prove it really works.
The pill contains lycopene, a natural antioxidant that also gives
tomatoes their colour.
Experts have suspected for some time that lycopene might be good for
avoiding illnesses, including certain cancers and cardiovascular
disease.There is some evidence that eating a Mediterranean-style diet,
which is rich in tomatoes (as well as other fruit and vegetables and
olive oil), is beneficial for health.
Following a healthy diet is still advisable but scientists have been
researching whether there is a way to put at least some of this good
stuff into an easy-to-take pill.A company called CamNutra has come up
with its own "tomato pill".Working independently of CamNutra, and
instead funded by the Wellcome Trust, the British Heart Foundation and
the National Institute of Health Research, a team at Cambridge
University set out to see if this pill would have the desired effect.
They recruited 36 volunteers known to have heart disease and 36
"healthy" controls, who were all given a daily tablet to take, which was
either the tomato pill or a placebo.
To ensure a fairer trial, neither the volunteers nor the researchers
were told what the tablets actually contained until after the two-month
study had ended and the results were in.
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