Adding plump red tomatoes to your salad is a great way to add some cancer-fighting food into your diet because tomatoes are loaded with lycopene, along with other phytochemicals. AICR’s expert report and its updates found that tomatoes and other food containing lycopene lower the risk of prostate cancer, specifically. Now, a new lab study suggests that eating tomatoes with soy foods may be even more protective against prostate cancer than each food consumed separately.

They study was published online in Cancer Prevention Research.

For the study, researchers wanted to look at the effects of tomato and soy — separately and in combination — on prostate cancer development. Along with tomato and its phytochemicals, lab studies have suggested that soy and its compounds also reduce prostate cancer risk.

The study used a type of mice genetically engineered to develop an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Researchers placed the mice into four diet groups: 1) whole tomato powder; 2) soy germ; 3) tomato powder and soy germ; and 4) control group that did not eat soy or tomato. Soy germ, just like wheat germ, is the reproductive part of the soy that germinates to grow into a plant. Continue reading →