Tomatoes and Orange Juice Show Health Benefits
In two separate stories, both tomatoes and orange juice have been shown
to have some unexpected health benefits. One story reported in
the March 19, 2002 issue of MSNBC Health states that, "Drinking
orange juice lowers blood pressure." The other article from the March
5, 2002 issue of MSNBC Health had the headline, "Tomatoes may lower
cancer risk."
In one study Dr. Dennis Sprecher of the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center
studied two dozen volunteers who drank two glasses of orange juice a day
for six weeks. The results were listed as astonishing with a measured 10
mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure, and a diastolic blood pressure
decrease by 3.5 mm Hg, on average for participants. Dr. Sprecher
remarked, “This is an enormous amount for two months. We were
astonished.”
The second study performed by Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Brigham and
Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, showed that
men who ate at least two meals a week containing tomato products lowered
their risk of prostate cancer by 24 to 36 percent. “These most
recent findings add support to the notion that a diet rich in tomatoes and
lycopene-containing foods, as well as other fruits and vegetables, may
reduce the risk of prostate cancer,” said Giovannucci.
Tomatoes also faired well in a second study of nearly 1,000
postmenopausal women enrolled in Harvard’s ongoing Women’s Health
Study. In this study women with the highest blood levels of lycopene,
the compound that gives tomatoes their red color, were about one-third
less likely to develop heart disease over the course of seven years than
those with those lowest levels.
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