Tomato Lycopene Study Supports Nutricosmetics Trend

While health experts promote the value of eating a tomato-rich Mediterranean diet, dietary supplementation with a lycopene-rich tomato extract is a convenient and effective means to insure that the diet is supplying ample tomato lycopene for healthy, beautiful skin.

21 Jan 2010 --- Marketers of nutricosmetic dietary supplements and beauty drinks targeting skin health cheer the results of a recent study on lycopene conducted by the Department of Dermatology at the Charite-University of Medicine in Berlin, Germany, Lycored has said. Results of this study, which focused on lycopene concentration in the furrowed and wrinkled foreheads of 20 subjects between 40 and 50 years old, demonstrated that high levels of antioxidants in the skin may be correlated to lower levels of skin roughness.  

Since the body does not produce its own lycopene, a diet rich in lycopene will help assure a high level in the skin.  Lycopene, a powerful antioxidant, is found in the greatest quantities in tomato.  While health experts promote the value of eating a tomato-rich Mediterranean diet, dietary supplementation with a lycopene-rich tomato extract is a convenient and effective means to insure that the diet is supplying ample tomato lycopene for healthy, beautiful skin.

“The researchers stated that ‘lycopene can be assumed to represent an efficient protection system against the negative action of the free radicals in the skin,’ and this is highly encouraging because it provides additional support for Lyc-O-Mato tomato lycopene as a skin protecting and beautifying ingredient for the fast growing nutricosmetics market,” explains Zohar Nir, V.P. of New Product Development and Scientific Affairs, for LycoRed, Ltd., manufacturers of Lyc-O-Mato.  “Skin smoothness is highly valued from an aesthetic perspective,” Nir continues, “but it is also an indicator of healthy skin.  Increasing dietary levels of  lycopene through daily supplementation with tomato lycopene is an easy way to insure the continued presence of high skin levels of these protectant antioxidants and to help protect the skin from photo-damage and environmental pollutants, and  to preserve the skin’s smoothness.”

LycoRed’s Lyc-O-Mato is a key ingredient in an increasing number of nutricosmetics marketed to provide a daily capsule full of tomato lycopene for the support of healthy and beautiful skin.  LycoRed is a science based company with regional facilities in the U.S., Europe and Israel, supplies natural carotenoids and a wide range of other nutritional and colouring ingredients to the dietary supplement, functional food, food and nutricosmetic industries worldwide.

References: (1) M. Darvin, et al, Cutaneous Concentration of Lycopene Correlates Significantly with the Roughness of the Skin, Eur. J. Pharm. BioPharm. (2008)