Scientists at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Ohio State University have been working to investigate how tomatoes may be imparting health benefits in a recently published study.
Studies in animals have shown that incorporating tomatoes into the diet can reduce the prevalence of chronic illnesses like prostate and liver cancer, according to a news release.
“We know that eating tomatoes is associated with a number of health benefits, and our study intended to dive deeper into what happens when you eat tomatoes from the standpoint of what is absorbed and how gene expression is altered,” Michael Dzakovich, a scientist with USDA ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, said in the release. “Rather than focusing only on one compound, we utilized a technology called metabolomics to broadly profile how hundreds of chemical compounds were changing in the liver as a result of tomato consumption. We also used transcriptomics to measure how all the detectable genes in the liver were changing at the same time. This approach gave us valuable insight into the potential mechanisms by which tomato consumption affects the liver and potentially the whole body.”
More details about this study can be found in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.
