CRI听力: UK Tomato Drug

Anchor:
A British drug company has launched a tomato-based capsule which it claims will revolutionize the way heart disease is treated around the world. It's based on lycopene, the substance which makes tomato skins red. But so far there's no evidence that the drug is effective.

Let's take a look with our reporter Huang Rui.

Reporter:
Scientists have known for decades that the lycopene found in ripe tomato skins is a powerful antioxidant that helps prevent our arteries from getting clogged. This clogging or furring of arteries contributes to heart and circulatory diseases.

General Practioner Robert Hicks explains how lycopene works here: (www.hXen.com)

"This works as an antioxidant, so what it does is it stops LDL cholesterol, that's bad cholesterol, from being oxidised into a damaged form which is more likely to fur up, to narrow the arteries. One of the good things about this product is that it's shown to be able to get into the body and do that job. Of course the knock on benefit of that is if it can reduce the likelihood of narrowed arteries you're less likely to suffer things like heart attack or stroke."

But until now it has been extremely difficult to get our bodies to absorb enough lycopene to make a difference to our health.

Cambridge Theranostics, a company set up by Cambridge University scientists, says lycopene cannot be absorbed into the body when tomato skins are raw. It usually has to be broken down by cooking them, in this case, in olive oil.

Even so, the company claims we would have to eat several plates of tomatoes a day to consume enough lycopene molecules to help prevent damage to our cells. It also says many of the tomatoes bought in supermarkets have far fewer antioxidants. They are picked early to last longer on store shelves, where they do not ripen sufficiently.

Cambridge Theranostics says its capsules, called Ateronon, use proteins from milk and soya to reduce the size of antioxidant molecules so that they can be absorbed more easily.

Cambridge Theranostics says each capsule contains seven milligrams of lycopene, compared to one milligram in a normal serving of cooked ripe tomatoes.

But this is where some in the medical profession urge caution.

Cambridge Theranostics conducted its own studies on a hundred and fifty people over five years.

It says they saw a ninety percent improvement without any ill effects. But there still have not been any properly conducted, random trials.

Ateronon is able to go straight to the market in the UK because it is officially a food supplement which does not have to undergo a medical trial.

Medical director of the British Heart Foundation, Peter Weissberg, says what is most important is to prove the capsules work under controlled conditions.

"Until you've really tested something you don't know whether it can do harm. Although it's a natural substance it's been concentrated up, and it has had chemical modifications so one can't always assume that it's just like eating a few tomatoes. But the real issue is the one of efficacy. We don't have any evidence that it's effective yet."

For China drive, I'm Huang Rui.