A beverage combining tomatoes and soy cut multiple inflammation indicators in just 28 days, offering a simple dietary approach to a chronic health problem that fuels numerous long-term diseases.
Researchers at Ohio State University tested a specially formulated juice loaded with lycopene, the compound that gives tomatoes their red color, and soy isoflavones, plant chemicals that mimic some hormonal activity. When 12 adults with obesity drank two 6-ounce cans daily for four weeks, their blood showed significant drops in three key inflammatory proteins compared to a control group drinking standard tomato juice without those boosted compounds.
The study, published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, found that only the fortified juice triggered meaningful reductions in interleukin-5, interleukin-12p70, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor. A fourth inflammation marker, tumor necrosis factor alpha, also declined though not at statistically significant levels.
Jessica Cooperstone, the lead researcher and associate professor of horticulture and crop science at Ohio State, framed the work as a test of whether food itself could be medicine. "Can we use food-based interventions to modulate inflammation? And can we test this in a rigorous way so that we can really see this is affecting inflammation, versus just saying something is anti-inflammatory?" she said.
The juice wasn't hastily assembled for this trial. Ohio State researchers developed it years earlier after preliminary studies hinted that diets heavy in tomato products or soy lowered prostate cancer risk. The version tested here used tomatoes specially bred for elevated lycopene plus soy isoflavone extract.
Why These Two Ingredients
Lycopene belongs to a class of compounds called carotenoids and serves as a natural pigment in plants. Soy isoflavones are flavonoids, another family of plant compounds, some of which can act like estrogen in the body. Both have captured scientific attention for their potential to influence inflammation and metabolic pathways tied to obesity and chronic disease.
Previous work at Ohio State had already linked increased juice consumption to lower prostate-specific antigen levels in some men with prostate cancer. General evidence also suggested that tomatoes and soy might independently or together reshape inflammatory and metabolic processes.
The research team didn't settle on water as a control. Instead, they had participants drink a low-carotenoid tomato juice in the second phase after a washout period. The reasoning was straightforward: researchers wanted to isolate whether it was specifically the lycopene and isoflavones driving the anti-inflammatory effect.
Beyond blood work, scientists examined participants' urine to track metabolites, the byproducts created when the body processes nutrients and performs basic functions. Some metabolite shifts appeared with both juices, suggesting tomatoes alone carry biological activity. But changes tied specifically to soy isoflavone metabolism showed up only in the group consuming the fortified version, adding a second line of evidence that the beverage genuinely altered human biology.
Next Stop: Pancreatitis
The inflammation-fighting results have prompted the team to move forward with a new goal. Cooperstone and her colleagues recently won funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to launch a pilot clinical trial examining whether the same juice could help people with pancreatitis, a condition marked by pancreatic inflammation with few effective treatment options.
Animal studies have already suggested the juice can reduce inflammation severity in chronic pancreatitis. Cooperstone noted that current care for pancreatitis patients is largely supportive, targeting pain and digestive symptoms. "Our hypothesis is that the tomato-soy juice may serve as an intervention to decrease inflammation and hopefully increase patients' quality of life," she said.
The work received backing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, and Ohio State's Foods for Health Initiative, among other sources. The research team included first author Maria Sholola, along with colleagues from Ohio State and the USDA.
Author Jessica Williams: "A four-week study with 12 people is modest, but the specific reductions in inflammation markers and the follow-up metabolite data suggest something real is happening, not just wishful thinking about plant compounds."
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