One aspect involved in initiation and development of both cardiovascular diseases and the cancers noted are abnormal oxidative processes leading to the generation of hydroxy radicals and peroxy compounds. In part, the protective role of vegetables, fruits, and tea is to provide antioxidant vitamins and specific polyphenols that display a powerful inhibition in oxidative reactions. Epidemiological studies as well as laboratory experimentation have yielded sound data and evidence in support of the fact that vegetables, fruits, and tea and specific antioxidants therein account mechanistically for inhibition. Geographic pathology has provided important data that populations with a regular intake of tomato products, such as in the Mediterranean region, have a lower incidence of the chronic diseases noted. The current Symposium is considering the varied mechanisms of action of tomato products in general, and one of the active principles, lycopene.
Cooking is a factor in releasing the desirable antioxidants from tomatoes.
Cooked tomato products may be preferable to the raw vegetable or juices derived from tomatoes bearing on absorption of the active principles. Optimally, absorption of lycopene, a highly lipid-soluble chemical, is improved in the presence of a small, but essential amount of oil or fat. The International Symposium on tea conducted in 1991 has provided worldwide interest in research on the beneficial effects of tea. It is now hoped that the present Symposium, dealing with another inexpensive and readily available food, tomatoes, will enhance interest in and funding for additional research, to underwrite future recommendations for possibly enhanced production and use of tomato-derived nutritional elements, with the goal of application to the prevention of major chronic diseases, the treatment of which is costly and often ineffective. Intervention trials designed to show a reduction of cancer incidence in the general population are logistically and practically impossible for most types of cancer, including cancer of the oral cavity.