Hidde van Steenwijk, researcher at Maastricht University, has studied the health effects of lycopene in tomatoes. He also looked at the effect of lycopene on inflammation levels, because such inflammatory values appear to have a negative influence on the development of lifestyle diseases such as type II diabetes.
Steenwijk notes that patients with higher inflammation levels also have lower lycopene concentrations in the blood. Reduction in circulating lycopene can be one of the first signs of chronic inflammation. However, the research also shows that an increase in the lycopene concentration does not directly reduce these inflammation.
The researcher concludes that the combination of different bioactive substances is important for the health effects of fruits and vegetables. Because a product such as tomato contains more health-promoting substances than lycopene, it therefore seems healthier to maintain the lycopene content by eating tomatoes instead of taking a lycopene supplement.
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