Lycopene Protects the Cerebral Vessels and Neurons Induced by Hyperlipidemia

By Kyle J. Norton

The liver is the largest internal organ located in the upper right portion of the abdomen, beneath your diaphragm and above your stomach.

The liver not only plays a critical role to filter the blood coming from the intestine before passing them to other parts of the body but also protects our body against toxin by detoxifying chemicals and metabolizes drugs.

Cholesterol is a waxy substance produced by the liver. In a moderate amount, it helps to improve the gastrointestinal tract in food digestion, builds strong cell membranes, produces vitamin D and steroid hormones.

The healthy ratio of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)/high-density lipoprotein (HDL) is ant numbers that are less than 4.

Hyperlipidemia is a medical condition of abnormally high levels of cholesterol and fat in the bloodstream.

High blood cholesterol is the most common cause of hyperlipidemia. According to statistics provided by the CDC, more than 12% of adults age 20 and older are living with high blood cholesterol with a total cholesterol higher than 240 mg/dL. and more than 18% had high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good”) cholesterol levels less than 40 mg/dL.

In other words, hyperlipidemia has a high prevalent ratio that affects over 100 million Americans and the condition is increasing at an alarming rate due to overweight and obesity.

Cerebral vessels or brain vessels include anterior and posterior segments that supply blood to the brain.

A neuron or nerve cell made of a cell body (also called soma), dendrites and an axon, is a cell in the nervous system that carries electrical impulses.

Neurons are core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves that play an essential role to process and transmit information.

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.

Tomatoes provide about 80% of the lycopene in the world diet. In plants, lycopene protects the host against excessive photodamage and performs various functions in photosynthesis.

On finding a potential compound for the treatment of diseases associated with the vessel and neuron damage, researchers examined the effects of lycopene isolated from tomato on vessel and neuron damage in the brain against hyperlipidemia.

Rats selected for the study were fed with hypercholesterolemic feed and treated with lycopene orally by gavage at the dose of 5, 25, 45, 65, 85, and 105, 125 mg/kg/bw-1/d-1 for 4 weeks.

Based on the results at the end of the experiment, lycopene doses and serum lycopene concentration showed an inverse U-shape curve.

In other words, long term intake of lycopene increases the serum of lycopene in the blood plasma linearly.

Serum lycopene concentration was negatively correlated with the levels of serum TC, TG, LDL-C, and cerebral LDL-C and pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain such as VEGF, and VCAM-1.

Furthermore, the serum lycopene concentration was positively correlated with the expression of Claudin-5 associated with the tight junctions that provide one mechanism of cell to cell adhesion and the number of neurons in hippocampal CA1 and CA3.

In other words, long-term intake of lycopene protects the vessels and neurons against the pathologic change caused by hyperlipidemia.

Collectively, researchers said, "These results suggested an inverse U-shape relation between dose and serum concentration of lycopene, and intermediate doses were most effective to protect cerebral vessels and neurons from being damaged by hyperlipidemia.".

Taken altogether, lycopene found abundantly may be considered supplements for the prevention and treatment of hyperlipidemia induced cerebral vessel and neuron impairment, pending on the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of lycopene in the form of supplements should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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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) The Dose-Response Effect of Lycopene on Cerebral Vessel and Neuron Impairment Induced by Hyperlipidemia by Wang W1, Yang W1, Shen Z2, Wen S1, Hu M. (PubMed)