Whole Food Tomato Modulates Immune Function to the Body Needs

By Kyle J. Norton

The immune system plays a critical role in the body's defense against infectious organisms and other pathogens.

The immune function can be classified into subsystems, including the innate and adaptive responses.

* The innate responses are the general response of the immune system that can act quickly to destroy invaders, regardless of types of organism.

* The adaptive responses develop slowly on first exposure to a new pathogen slowly. In some cases, it may take a week or so before the responses are effective.

However, due to the quick division of bacteria, (a single bacterium with a doubling time of one hour can produce almost 20 million progeny), therefore, our body is totally depending to the innate immune system to destroy the invader in the first critical hours and days of exposure.

Believe it or not, if the innate immune subsystem cannot destroy the foreign invader in a set of period of time from 3 -8 weeks, it will compromise, leading to low-grade inflammation in facilitating the onset of various diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and arthritis.

Immune modulation is the process to increase and decrease the immune functioning depending on the needs of the body. In people with a weakened immune system, modulation of the immune system are found to enhance immune functioning against the infectious agents.

However, in people with overactive immunity, modulation of the immune function will reduce the risk of the immune system attacking the body tissues.

Tomato is red, edible fruit, genus Solanum, belonging to family Solanaceae, native to South America. Because of its health benefits, the tomato is grown worldwide for the commercial purpose
and often in the greenhouse.

With an aim to find a potential compound with immune modulatory activity, researchers examined the influence of tomato aqueous extract (TAE) on the in vitro inflammatory response.

According to the results observed by the Murine macrophages (RAW264.7 cells), PBLs and HUVECs incubated with TAE, TAE exerted a significant effect in the inhibition of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as L-1β, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12 and chemokines such as CCL2/MCP-1, CCL3/MIP-1α.

In the endothelial cell, TAE reduced ED-associated expression of adhesion molecules (ICAM-1, VCAM-1) associated with the production of inflammation.

In macrophages, the production of pro-inflammatory proteins associated with low-grade inflammation also inhibited the injection of TAE.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "during acute inflammation, TAE enhances cellular alertness and therefore the sensing of disturbed immune homeostasis in the vascular-endothelial compartment. Conversely, it blunts inflammatory mediators in macrophages during chronic inflammation".

In other words, TAE protects the integrity and viability of immune cells by modulating the immune activity depending on the needs of the body.

Furthermore, in a blinded, randomized, cross-over study, male subjects on a low-carotenoid diet consumed 330 ml/day of either tomato juice (37.0 mg/day lycopene) or carrot juice (27.1 mg/day beta-carotene and 13.1 mg/day alpha-carotene) for 2 weeks with a 2-week depletion period after juice intervention, researchers compared the effects of a low-carotenoid diet supplemented with either tomato (providing high amounts of lycopene) or carrot juice (providing high amounts of alpha- and beta-carotene) on immune functions in healthy man.

According to the results from the tested assays, juice consumption showed relatively fast responses in plasma carotenoid concentrations (p < 0.0002) without accompanied by concomitant changes in immune functions. 

However, increased plasma carotenoid concentrations after vegetable juice consumption were accompanied by a time-delayed modulation of immune functions in healthy men consuming a low-carotenoid diet.

Precisely, tomato juice modulated the immune function in a delay and concentration-dependent manner.

Taken altogether, tomatoes may be considered supplements for the modulation of immune function based on the body needs, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Tomato Aqueous Extract Modulates the Inflammatory Profile of Immune Cells and Endothelial Cells by Schwager J1, Richard N2, Mussler B3, Raederstorff D. (PubMed)
(2) Supplementation of a low-carotenoid diet with tomato or carrot juice modulates immune functions in healthy men by Watzl B1, Bub A, Briviba K, Rechkemmer G. (PubMed)