Can eating tomatoes help protect my skin?

For younger looking skin, skip the high-priced wrinkle creams and invest in a 50-cent can of tomato paste. Eating a little tomato paste every day not only may help your wallet, but a new study suggests that it may give you deep-down 24/7 protection against wrinkles and skin cancer, too.

In a small study, people supplemented their normal diets with about 2 1/2 tablespoons of tomato paste mixed with a couple of teaspoons of olive oil every day for 10 weeks while a control group got just the olive oil. The volunteers also sat under a sun lamp at the beginning, middle, and end of the study—just long enough to lightly sunburn their shoulders. But by week 10, the tomato-paste group showed 40% less sun damage than the olive-oil eaters did.

Tomatoes are one of the best sources of lycopene around, and scientists speculate that this antioxidant may help to soften some of the sun's damaging effects on skin.

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