Perhaps you’ve heard the term “free radical.” A free radical is a chemical in your body that has an unpaired electron. It’s as if that chemical is an airplane with only one wing, spinning out of control. As the chemical spins in the body, it’s desperately searching for its “wing.” There are free radicals all around us, and the body also creates free radicals when we move, eat and even breathe.

"When left unchecked, free radicals can damage cellular DNA, which can contribute to accelerated aging and many diseases, including cancer," explains naturopathic oncologist Lise Alschuler, coauthor of The Definitive Guide to Cancer (Celestial Arts, 2010) and Five to Thrive: Your Cutting-Edge Cancer Prevention Plan (Active Interest Media, 2011).  “One way to prevent free radical damage to our health is to make sure we are ingesting enough antioxidant nutrients through diet and dietary supplements.”

Antioxidants give free radicals their missing electrons, which makes the free radicals  whole again and able to be eliminated from the body before they do damage. One free radical that is created after exercise is reactive oxygen species (ROS). But new research shows that drinking tomato juice, which is rich in antioxidants, can eliminate ROS.

Researchers from Stockholm, Sweden, published their study involving exercise-induced ROS and tomato juice in the May 2, 2012 issue of Nutrition Journal. The study featured 15 healthy adults who rode an exercise bike for 20 minutes daily at 80 percent of their maximum pulse rate. Blood levels of a specific marker of oxidative stress were measured before the study participants exercised and then again one hour after exercise.

During the first phase of the test, the researchers tested participants’ blood for five weeks and noted a 42 percent increase in oxidative stress levels. Then the participants were asked to drink 5 ounces of tomato juice per day during the next five-week phase of the study, and the researchers found that there was no increase in oxidative stress levels. Once again, the researchers had the participants exercise for five weeks, but in this phase the participants did not drink the tomato juice. The oxidative stress levels increased to 84 percent. In the final five weeks of the study, the participants once again drank 5 ounces of tomato juice per day and there was no increase in oxidative stress levels.

“…Long-term intake of tomato juice may reduce oxidative stress levels in patients with enhanced levels of oxidative stress; for example, patients with diabetes, cardiovascular disease or inflammation,” concluded the researchers.

Tomatoes contain an antioxidant known as lycopene. Some preliminary studies have demonstrated that lycopene can help prevent cardiovascular disease as well as some cancers, most notably prostate cancer.

The researchers pointed out that besides lycopene, tomatoes boast a variety of other antioxidants, including vitamins C and E, polyphenols and carotenoids. “It has been shown that among all antioxidants present in tomato juice, lycopene is the most abundant and stable during industrial food processing,” they said.