The mainstream cancer industry spends billions of dollars studying breast cancer. (Even if they are largely barking up the wrong tree.) But research into prostate cancer has been abysmal by comparison…almost like an afterthought.
Thankfully, a new generation of scientists has picked up the research we started way back in the 1980s into lycopene—a powerful carotenoid found in tomatoes that can help prevent prostate cancer.
Let’s take a look…
Tomatoes packed with healing nutrient
In the mid-1980s, I was on the team of researchers at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland that discovered the role of carotenoids in human nutrition and metabolism.
For this research, we recruited students from the University of Maryland, College Park, and took blood samples to analyze the amounts of different carotenoids present in the blood.
By the end of October 1984, we had our results.
First, we busted the myth about the importance of the well-known carotenoid beta-carotene. It turns out, beta-carotene is just a bit player—not a major factor in healthy foods…or in human blood.
Second, we discovered that the really important carotenoids were ones the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had never even heard about before…including lycopene.
It turns out, our college students all had sky-high blood levels of lycopene. And eventually, we realized these high levels stemmed from what we called their “frat boy” diet, which included lots of foods with tomato sauce—like pizza, pasta, and meatball subs—and ketchup, which they poured on hamburgers and fries.
Of course, these foods all contain cooked tomatoes—which hold concentrated sources of lycopene. (Cooking takes out much of the water content of tomatoes, leaving just the concentrated nutrient constituents like lycopene.) In fact, eating cooked tomatoes is like taking a lycopene supplement. Just one-half cup of cooked tomato sauce contains almost 20 mg of lycopene (which is a good, healthy dose for a carotenoid)!
Other foods high in lycopene include guava, papaya, red bell peppers, and watermelon. (Though, be careful, U.S. sources of papaya are all genetically modified, as I noted most recently in the July 2020 issue of my monthly newsletter, Insiders’ Cures [“Your annual guide to the season’s cleanest—and “dirtiest”—produce”].)
We eventually presented our findings about the importance of lycopene to the big bosses at NIH. But they persisted in spending tens of millions of dollars studying beta-carotene, the wrong carotenoid, despite our findings and my repeated warnings.
In time, the truth eventually came out that studying isolated beta-carotene was a dead-end…and that lycopene has a ton of health potential. Especially when it comes to preventing prostate cancer.
And that point brings me back to the new study I mentioned at the beginning on this Dispatch…
Lycopene offers strong prostate support
For this new study, researchers followed more than 27,000 men for about eight years. At the study’s outset, all the men were cancer-free.
During the eight-year follow-up period, more than 1,000 men developed prostate cancer. However, men who consumed cooked tomatoes four or more times per week had a 28 percent lower risk for prostate cancer compared to those who did not eat any tomatoes at all. And men who consumed about one-third cup per day of cooked or canned tomatoes received the most protection.
Interestingly, the researchers did not find that eating raw tomatoes or tomato juice provided any protection against prostate cancer. But that finding makes sense to me, especially when you consider what we learned back in the 1980s about how cooking the tomatoes concentrates the lycopene.
So, instead of relying on the mainstream to finally pay some attention to prostate cancer…I suggest you focus on what you can do NOW to prevent the disease. Such as eating lots of cooked tomatoes during the week.
Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, my father’s family is Italian—so we always seem to have a big pot of marinara sauce simmering on the stove. And when I make it, I often think of that pivotal scene in The Godfather Part 1, when mobster Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano) teaches Michael (Al Pacino), Don Vito Corleone’s youngest son and a WW II combat hero, how to make “gravy.”
I’ve always thought that scene marks the beginning of Michael’s descent into the mob life. Indeed, he spent the rest of his life trying to get out of the sauce, so to speak. He later commented, “each time I tried to get out, they pulled me back in.”
At one point in the scene, Clemenza says to Michael, “Come here…you never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday. Start out with a little bit of [olive] oil. Then you fry some garlic, then you t’row in some tomatoes, tomato paste; you fry it and make sure it doesn’t stick.”
And guess what? That’s a good, basic recipe for your own homemade tomato sauce…and for a healthy prostate! (Also, remember to “leave the gun; take the cannoli,” for dessert.)
You can also learn everything you need to know about how to NATURALLY conquer prostate cancer, banish an enlarged prostate, and maximize your manhood in my comprehensive, science-backed Insider’s Ultimate Guide to Perfect Prostate Health. To learn more about this innovative learning protocol, or to sign up today, click here now!
Source:
“Tomato consumption and intake of lycopene as predictors of the incidence of prostate cancer: the Adventist Health Study-2.” Cancer Causes Control 2020 Apr;31(4):341-351. doi.org/10.1007/s10552-020-01279-z.