Broccoli Teams up With Tomatoes as Superfood Partners

Watching satellite television of few weekends ago, after my wife had called me downstairs to watch, I was intrigued to see coverage of the recent study into the health effects of broccoli and tomato. I had already read of the report, and had started to look into it, but what impressed me most about the program was that it was aimed at school children.

The program itself was on an Australian channel, presented in a teaching manner as if in a classroom. The "teacher" provided simple explanations along the way of the less common words children may not be aware of, such as antioxidants. Given that the news of the broccoli plus tomato study had only recently been released, I was very impressed. Good for Australia, I thought, taking children's education into the realm of health and diet; excellent. I just hope there were children watching, not just adults such as my wife and I far off in the Philippines.

If you have not heard of the study, it was reported in the Cancer Research Magazine in January this year, and took place at the University of Illinois. The study involved rats which were implanted with prostate cancer cells. They were divided into several groups for the study, and comparisons were made between those which were fed broccoli powder alone, tomato powder alone, lycopene alone and a group who were fed both broccoli and tomato powders. Another group was fed a prostate drug, and yet another castrated.

The study results showed that the combination of tomato and broccoli powders fared the best in shrinking the prostate growths, so it looks like the synergy between broccoli and tomato is a promising prospect for the future treatment of prostate cancer. No doubt further scientific studies will reveal more.