A Japanese study on mice has found that tomato juice could prevent emphysema due to exposure to cigarette smoke. The study attributing the beneficiary results to the antioxidant lycopene is the first such research that links the prevention of the lung-destroying disease to tomato consumption.
The report that is appearing in the forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology however does apply the same rule to humans. Lead author of the report, Kuniaki Seyama from Juntendo University School of Medicine in Tokyo said, "We can't simply accept that these results go beyond the mouse model".
He suggested such a conclusion could “not so smoothly” be applied to humans. The researchers now hope to test the efficacy of tomato juice on those suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD).
Only recently, lycopene proponents suffered a setback when the USFDA ruled that the antioxidant present in red fruits like pomegranates, tomatoes and watermelon was not likely to lower risks of cancer. Whereas at the same time another Harvard University study points to a serving everyday of tomato-based foods in lowering heart disease risks by as high as 30 percent.
The Japanese study conducted its dietary tests on two different mice breeds, a normal breed and a quickly aging breed. Emphysema according to them would show up quicker on the latter. But post eight weeks of cigarette smoke exposure, the fast-aging mice not fed on tomato juice developed the disease while those consuming a 50 percent tomato juice mixture did not. In both test groups the normally bred mice did not show signs of the disease.
According to the Japanese researchers the antioxidant Lycopene probably reversed the tissue-destroying effects of oxidant molecules in tobacco smoke. They wrote, "We expect that lycopene modulates the oxidant-antioxidant balance perturbed by our experimental condition of tobacco smoke exposure". But Richard Baybutt from Kansas State University gave an alternative explanation having sometime ago performed a study on similar lines. According to him tomato juice rich in beta-carotene is easily converted to vitamin A. His experiments with rats led him to conclude: "Animals on a vitamin A-deficient diet without any exposure to smoke developed emphysema".
Baybutt also explained this relationship through another connection wherein the cigarette smoke component benzopyrene is known to induce vitamin A deficiency. But Emphysema predominantly known to be a smokers' disease is itself a bit of an enigma given there being a certain genetic predilection to the condition. The sufferers endure breathlessness and wheezing besides irreversible damage to their lungs. The damage of the lung's elastic supporting structure leads to the breakdown and collapse of airways.
The Japanese researchers apparently stumbled upon the link between tomato and prevention of Emphysema while searching for an animal model for studying the impact of smoking. Earlier British researchers found that Retinoic acid a vitamin A derivative can cure Emphysema in mice. It however is still a long way from applying these results of mice studies in treating humans with Emphysema. One can only hope that all this research eventually leads to the discovery of a cure to the otherwise irreversible condition.
