Can Tomatoes & Lycopene Protect You Against Cancer?

Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant found in tomatoes. This massive new study set out to see if tomatoes and lycopene could protect you from cancer.

Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant found in red fruits and vegetables, including watermelon, pink grapefruit and apricots. But over 80% of our lycopenes come from tomatoes.

This new systematic review, which included 119 studies of over 2.6 million people, looked at the protective role of tomato and lycopene in cancer.

The study did not find that eating tomato reduced your risk of cancer. But it did find that the people who ate the most tomato had a significant 11% lower risk of dying from cancer.

When it came to lycopene in the diet, the study found getting more lycopene in your diet did significantly reduce the risk of cancer by 5%. When it came to cancer mortality, the risk was reduced by a significant 16%.

The most accurate way of measuring lycopene intake is by analyzing blood levels. People with the highest blood levels of lycopene had a significant 11% lower risk of cancer and a significant 24% lower risk of dying from it.

This study suggests that eating more tomatoes and, especially, getting more lycopene can protect against cancer.

Front. Nutr. 2025;12:1516048.

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