A Tomato A Day Keeps You At Play – In And Out Of The Bedroom

Forget apples, it’s a tomato a day that keeps the doctor away and keeps you at play!

In today’s article, you will learn exactly why the good old-fashioned tomato is one of the most important foods for physical and sexual health.

And what better day to do it on than Fresh Tomato Day?

There are so many exciting things to share, but let’s kick things off by looking at the nutritional profile of a tomato.

What’s In A Tomato?

One medium sized tomato contains:

• Many of the nutrients that the average Canadian needs more of, including: vitamin A, potassium, fibre and magnesium. Magnesium, in particular, is known to play a role in regulating male testosterone levels (Maggio, 2014).
• A rich supply of different antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients, especially those in the carotenoid group (including lycopene, lutein, zeaxthin and beta carotene).
• A very low glycemic index score, meaning it hardly impacts your blood sugar levels.
• All for around 25 calories!

Health Benefits Of Tomatoes

So, we know that tomatoes are chalk full of nutrients, but what does the science say about tomato consumption and your health in the long-term?

1. Prostate Cancer Prevention: The consumption of tomatoes and tomato-based sauces is associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer, with higher intakes of tomato products associated with greater reductions in risk (Rowles et al., 2018). This effect is attributed to lycopene. Prostate Cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed male cancers and an important topic that we will review here at love2lose.com in the months to come.

2. Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: Recent work reviewing the connection between tomato consumption and cardiovascular health found that those who eat tomatoes with more regularity tended to have better blood cholesterol and blood pressure levels, which means tomato consumption eating tomatoes could potentially directly contribute to a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (Cheng et al., 2017). From the sexual health perspective, uncontrolled blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels could potentially contribute to erectile dysfunction, which means regular tomato consumption is a great preventative step to take.

3. Gastric Cancer Prevention: When researchers look at tomato consumption patterns and gastric cancer risk, they found that those who eat tomatoes and tomato products most often had the lowest risk (Yang et al.,2013).

Tomatoes And The Sexercise Connection

When we speak about the connection between eating tomatoes and your sexual health, we have to look at things from the perspective of prevention.

As I mentioned earlier, tomatoes play a role in preventing prostate cancer, which happens to be one of the most common male cancers.

Even though the survival rate is high, the treatment associated with this, and other types of cancer (radiation) is often associated with symptoms of erectile dysfunction that may take years to recover from.

Here at love2lose.com, we believe that your  best bet at maintaining peak physical and sexual functioning is to ensure you reduce your risk of the chronic diseases which may either directly or indirectly impact your health and sex life.

When your physical and sexual function is at its best, you can enjoy the health benefits of Sexercise that come with regular workouts in and out of the bedroom.

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Tomatoes

Before we go though, I’d like to share one really fun fact about how to prepare your tomatoes to make sure you get the most nutritional gain out of them.

By now I hope that you’ve been convinced about the numerous benefits associated with eating more tomatoes.

But what if I told you that how you eat and prepare can affect their nutrient levels?

Many of the most potent compounds in tomatoes (including lycopene, which you may have heard of!) are actually more easily absorbed by your body when the tomatoes themselves are heated and prepared with a source of fat.

So that means your home-made tomato sauce prepared with olive oil is a lycopene rich superfood!

It also means that if you use tomatoes in your salad, you now have a great reason to add a source of healthy fat like nuts, avocados or oil.

Final Thoughts

As we wrap up Fresh Tomato Day here at love2lose.com, I will leave you with an important reminder that tomatoes, like  all fruits and vegetables, are an incredibly powerful tool to help you maintain both your physical and sexual health.

Source

L. Rowles, Joe & M. Ranard, Katherine & C. Applegate, Catherine & Jeon, Sookyoung & An, Ruopeng & Erdman Jr, John. (2018). Processed and raw tomato consumption and risk of prostate cancer: a systematic review and dose–response meta-analysis. Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases. 10.1038/s41391-017-0005-x.

Ho Ming Cheng, Georgios Koutsidis, John K. Lodge, Ammar Ashor, Mario Siervo, José Lara. Tomato and lycopene supplementation and cardiovascular risk factors: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Atherosclerosis, Volume 257, 2017, Pages 100-108. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2017.01.009.

Tingsong Yang, Xiaohu Yang, Xudong Wang, Yiling Wang, Zhenshun Song, The role of tomato products and lycopene in the prevention of gastric cancer: A meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies. Medical Hypotheses, Volume 80, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 383-388. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2013.01.005.

Marcello Maggio, Francesca De Vita, Fulvio Lauretani, et al., “The Interplay between Magnesium and Testosterone in Modulating Physical Function in Men.’ International Journal of Endocrinology, vol. 2014, Article ID 525249, 9 pages, 2014. DOI:10.1155/2014/525249