Lycopene, Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Free-Radicals, & Sunlight

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excerpts from two separate links on tomatoes/lycopene:

http://www.wholehealthmd.com/refshelf/substances_view/1,1525,803,00.html

In plants, lycopene is similar to other carotenoids, serving as a light-absorbing pigment during photosynthesis and protecting cells against photosensitization.

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Studies are exploring the link between lycopene and skin cancer. Results suggest the possibility that diets low in tomato products and lycopene could lead to reduced lycopene concentrations in the skin, placing a person at higher risk for sunlight-induced skin damage.

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http://www.eat-online.net/english/education/olive_oil/health_benefits.htm

A recent paper (1) published by Dr. Chopra's research group at the Northern Ireland Center for Diet and Health, University of Ulster, had some interesting conclusions. Health benefits from lycopene in tomato products have been suggested to be related to its antioxidant activity. Dietary fat may influence the absorption and hence the antioxidant activity of lycopene. The study compared the effect of consumption of tomato products with extra-virgin olive oil versus sunflower oil. The different oils did not affect the absorption of the lycopene into the body, but the tomato/olive oil combination generated increased plasma antioxidant activity by around 20%. Therefore one conclusion drawn from the research was that it would seem that consumption of tomato products with olive oil, but not with sunflower oil, improves the antioxidant activity of the plasma.

Researchers are faced with the question of whether the combination of tomato and olive oil does something synergistically, or whether the beneficial antioxidant effects are caused by olive oil alone. Extra virgin olive oil is particularly rich in the phenolic antioxidants as well as squalene and oleic acid, and high consumption of the foregoing in the diet provides considerable protection against colon, breast and skin cancer, coronary heart disease and aging by inhibiting oxidative stress. Research has shown that scavenging of the hydroxyl radical was significantly higher among extracts of olive oil. This effect was only minimal in seed oils