Hey, I have grown the best tomatoes, for years, and well before dxs'ng.  RP
@ 49
Yeah, I ate tomatoes, and even before they came into this news group as
cancer aids.........
I still eat tomatoes, and love everyone, and her sister......
Anyway, trying to be a bit silly.
Yes, I have eaten my share of tomatoes, grown them, and eat garlic, and
onions, and now mostly buy organic food.  Cost 2 times as much as regular
So far I have gotten prostate cancer, when 49.
Can tomatoes help?  I wonder

Thanks for the post Steve.

Dave P.

hi john - last year, someone wrote in and made a comment about how
tomatoes help prevent prostate cancer and i wrote a response about like
you did.  

i love tomatoes, had eaten them all my life and still eat at least one
to two lbs a week now.  i ended up with pca at age 56 and ask the poster
did it help me.

he wrote back and said - well, maybe you would have gotten pca at age 53
instead.

~ curtis

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional

A couple of weeks ago I heard or read about a recent study with
Harvard involvement.  I think it concluded that Lycopene supplements
were less effective than cooked tomatoes in a variety of forms
including:
-- tomatoe sauces
-- katchup (beware the high sodium)
Personally, I open a can or tomato paste and choke down a healthy
tablespoonfull a day or spread it on sandwiches, beans, etc. Not too
bad actually.  Dr. Charles Myers advocates this approach which is
cheap and easy.
I recall some additional results that indicated that the tomatoes
needed to be cooked in oil (preferably a little olive oil) to get the
most beneficial results.
(I found a cy of what I had read.  See below.)
Jack Davis
Sarasota, Fl

==========================
Wednesday, March 06, 2002

WASHINGTON — Men who consume tomato products two or more times a week
can significantly reduce their chances of contracting prostate cancer,
a study found.

Eating cooked tomatoes was particularly beneficial, according to the
study, which showed that regularly eating tomato sauce, ketchup and
other tomato-based foods lowered the prostate cancer risk by as much
as 36 percent.

Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard
School of Public Health, the first author of the study, said it
supported earlier research involving foods such as tomatoes that were
high in lycopene, a powerful antioxidant.

"These most recent findings add support to the notion that a diet rich
in tomatoes and lycopene-containing foods, as well as other fruits and
vegetables, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer," Giovannucci said.

A report on the study appears Wednesday in the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute.

Researchers analyzed the food choices and prostate cancer histories of
more than 47,000 men and found that those who ate at least two meals a
week containing tomato products lowered their risk of prostate cancer
by 24 percent to 36 percent.

Giovannucci said that lycopene is thought to protect against cancer by
absorbing oxygen free-radicals, which are chemicals created during
metabolism that can damage the genetic structure of cells.

The finding is based on data from the Health Professional Follow-Up
Study, a project that followed the health history and dietary habits
of 47,000 men, aged 40 to 75, from 1986 to 1998. During that period,
2,481 of the men developed prostate cancer.

Dietary questionnaires in the study included such food items as
tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice, pizza, watermelon and pink
grapefruit, along with salsa, ketchup and other tomato-based
condiments.

When the data was adjusted for the effects of other life style
factors, the researchers found that tomatoes, especially if they had
been cooked, were beneficial against prostate cancer.

"Spaghetti sauce was the most popular" and also seemed to give the
most protection, said Giovannucci. He said that cooking raw tomatoes,
as is done to make spaghetti sauce, may break down cell walls of the
fruit and allow the body to absorb more lycopene.

Jo Ann Carson, a clinical nutritionist at the University of Texas,
Southwest Medical Center in Dallas, said the study "is an example that
what we eat can affect our risk of cancer."

The study also supports the idea that foods rich in antioxidants,
rather than vitamin pills, provide the most cancer protection, she
said.

"Eating the whole foods seems to give a beneficial combination that
would be lacking in supplements," Carson said.

=======