Premature Skin Aging and Tomatoes

By Bonnie Jenkins, Advanced Natural Medicine

About this time of year, I start dreaming of luscious, homegrown veggies – especially juicy red tomatoes. Of course, I’ll have to spend long hours in the hot sun planting, watering and weeding to get this summer bounty – and that means exposure to harmful UV rays.

Wearing protective clothing, frequently slathering exposed skin with a sunscreen and staying indoors when the rays are strongest are part of my gardening routine. But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my favorite vegetable – tomatoes – might offer protection to a sunburn-prone Norwegian like me. Yet that’s just what a European research team has discovered.

Dietary Defense

Tomatoes derive their rich color from carotenoids like beta-carotene, lutein, and especially lycopene. When it comes to staving off sunburn – and the subsequent damage to your skin – lycopene is a particularly potent antioxidant that is able to quench the free radicals that can lead to skin cancer and premature skin aging. There is, however, a trick to absorbing therapeutic concentrations of lycopene. According to a study at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, tomatoes first need to be cooked, then eaten along with something fatty, like fatty fish or olive oil.

And that’s just what this new study prescribed during their 10-week trial. The scientists recruited 22 men and women with fair complexions, blue eyes, blonde or light-brown hair and a tendency to burn. Half the participants were directed to add 10 grams of olive oil to their daily diet while the rest were to add the oil plus 40 grams of tomato paste each day. That’s about half of a small can of paste, which the participants typically spread on a few slices of bread.

Why use tomato paste? The earlier work by the Düsseldorf biochemists suggested that cooking liberates the carotenoids from the plant cells. Though eating them along with the oil facilitates their uptake by the body, they become most effective when they actually enter the oil, which happens when tomatoes are simmered with oil to make tomato paste.

In their trial, the researchers periodically used a coin-size beam of ultraviolet light on the back of each volunteer to simulate sun exposure. The skin of the people who ate their normal diet plus the oil remained sensitive to sunlight throughout the study. But the skin resisted burning in those who downed the tomato/oil duo. By the end of the study, the tomato paste group experienced 35 percent less reddening than the control group.

Supplemental Sun Protection

Fortunately, you don’t have to load up on tomato paste to harvest the benefits of lycopene. In a small randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial, 12 patients were given either supplemental beta-carotene or a combination of beta-carotene, lutein and lycopene before being exposed to sunlight. After four months, the researchers found that taking a daily dose of the combined carotinoid supplements significantly lowered the risk of ultraviolet-induced sunburn.

In another clinical trial, scientists looked at the effects of a proprietary antioxidant supplement containing beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamins C and E, selenium and proanthocyanidins. After just two weeks, healthy young women who were given the supplement had significantly less sun-induced skin reddening then those taking a placebo, leading the researchers to conclude that a carotenoid supplement that includes lycopene can not only help prevent sunburn, it may even guard against chronic skin damage.

While most of the studies used 8 mg. of lycopene, taking just 6 mg. will offer you added protection against the sun. But since lycopene won’t fully protect you from a sunburn, it’s best to use it in conjunction with a good mineral-based sunscreen.

One Last Thing ...

Lycopene isn’t the only nutrient to offer UV protection. Green tea can also protect against the sun’s harmful rays, both when you drink it and when you apply it directly to the skin. Recent studies have concluded that green tea is effective for preventing the development of skin tumors triggered by overexposure to the sun. Research suggests that green tea works in three ways to thwart sun damage: First it is very effective in fighting free radicals. Second, it boosts the immune function of skin. And finally, green tea is a potent anti-inflammatory. All of these actions are triggered by a major polyphenol in green tea known as epigallocatechin-3-gallate, or EGCG.

Along with drinking green tea or taking a green tea extract, look for a sunscreen that includes this herb for protection both inside and out. As an added benefit, topical green tea might even ward of wrinkles! In a 2005 study, 40 women with moderate photoaging were randomized to either a green tea cream plus 300 mg. of a green tea supplement twice a day or a placebo regimen for 8 weeks. While no significant difference in clinical grading was found between the two groups, an examination of skin biopsies from the participants did show significant improvement in the elastic tissue of those using the green tea.

This Just In ...

Last week, I told you about a condition known as labyrinthitis – chronic dizziness that could stem from food allergies – and suggested several natural remedies, from acupuncture to gingko biloba. But one reader named Richard has another remedy to share.

“I had an experience that might be helpful to the people with dizziness problems. In 1990 I had a burst brain aneurism and had to have two brain surgeries in one week. I was lucky and came through it in good shape. But since then, I’ve had several spells of dizziness. Someone told me about a little pill, called Gelsemium sempervirens, that might help. Well it did help – after taking the pills for one or two days, the problem was gone!”

The little pill Richard is referring to is a homeopathic remedy from Carolina yellow jasmine that is used to treat dizziness, as well as anxiety, flu, headaches, nervous disorders, pain in the uterus and painful menstruation. While Carolina jasmine is poisonous, homeopathy works on the principal that “like cures like” and uses extremely minute quantities of the diluted substance to treat various disorders. While many traditional doctors think that homeopathy is a lot of hooey, a number of studies show that this approach really does work.

So if you’ve tried herbs and other alternative therapies and your world is still spinning, give Gelsemium sempervirens a go. But if you’ve never used homeopathic remedies, take it under the supervision of a certified homeopath who can determine the proper dose.

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References:

Chow HH, Cai Y, Hakim IA, et al. “Pharmacokinetics and safety of green tea polyphenols after multiple-dose administration of epigallocatechin gallate and polyphenon E in healthy individuals.” Clinical Cancer Research. 2003;9:3312-3319.

Dorgan JF, Boakye NA, Fears TR, et al. “Serum carotenoids and alpha-tocopherol and risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer.” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 2004;13:1276-1282.

Greul AK, Grundmann JU, Heinrich F, et al. “Photoprotection of UV-irradiated human skin: an antioxidative combination of vitamins E and C, carotenoids, selenium and proanthocyanidins.” Skin Pharmacology and Applied Skin Physiology. 2002;15: 307-315.

Heinrich U, Gartner C, Wiebusch M, et al. “Supplementation with beta-carotene or a similar amount of mixed carotenoids protects humans from UV-induced erythema.” Journal of Nutrition. 2003;133:98-101.

Stahl W, Heinrich U, Wiseman S,et al. “Dietary tomato paste protects against ultraviolet light-induced erythema in humans.” Journal of Nutrition. 2001;131:1449.