Ketchup helps fight cancers in women

Tomato ketchup can help the fight against breast cancer and osteoporosis, experts say.

It is proving to be an unlikely source of defence against potentially fatal diseases.

Studies by researchers have found that it contains a substance called lycopene, which gives tomatoes their red colour. In the past tomatoes full of lycopene have been found to help men fight prostate cancer and it is now thought women can reap benefits from them too.

Dr Edward Giovannucci of Harvard Medical School, who has led the 12-year study, said: "Ketchup is an ideal source of lycopene, because it contains high concentrations of the compound, due to thermal processing used in its manufacturing. Tomato sauce captures most of the lycopene."

At the Ben-Gurion University in Israel, Dr Joseph Levy tested the effects of lycopene and other tomato nutrients, phytoene and phytofluene, on breast cancer cells.

He discovered that when the cells were exposed to low levels of the nutrients they continued to grow dramatically but the proliferation of cancer cells stopped when treated with higher levels.

It is also thought a diet rich in tomatoes can help prevent osteoporosis - brittle bone disease - which attacks mainly older women.

Another study, this time at the University of Toronto, by Dr Leticia Rao, tested the impact of lycopene on two different kinds of body cells.

Dr Rao said: "We found the lycopene cuts down the number of bad cells. It's a very important finding."

Lycopene is also said to be found in shellfish, watermelon and pink grapefruit.