Tomato Detox

Scientists at U.S. the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and Ohio State University have reaffirmed the detoxification attributes of tomatoes in the human diet. Detoxifying helps clear the body of overload of waste products and toxins that build up in the liver, intestines and elsewhere. This has many health benefits, including protection from cancer.

“We know that eating tomatoes is associated with a number of health benefits, and our study intended to dive deeper into what happens when you eat tomatoes from the standpoint of what is absorbed and how gene expression is altered,” said Dr. Michael Dzakovich of the USDA-ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center. “Rather than focusing only on one compound, we utilized a technology called metabolomics to broadly profile how hundreds of chemical compounds were changing in the liver as a result of tomato consumption. We also used transcriptomics to measure how all the detectable genes in the liver were changing at the same time. This approach gave us valuable insight into the potential mechanisms by which tomato consumption affects the liver and potentially the whole body.”

The scientists found that regardless of the tomato variety, there was an increase in the activation of genes related to xenobiotic metabolism, a series of biological processes that help the body detoxify itself. Tomatoes appear to be benefiting human health by promoting production of the enzymes that allow excretion of potentially toxic compounds.