番茄红素与癌

番茄红素是主要的类胡萝卜素之一，最近的科学研究发现，它对人类健康有重要的作用。本文介绍了番茄红素的食物来源、生物合成、物理化学特性和生理活性，它的抗癌效果与其抗氧化活性有关。很多的流行病学研究证明，番茄红素对一些类型的癌有预防效果，如前列腺癌和消化道癌。体内和体外的癌细胞培养研究也支持这一结论。因此，具有广泛用途的番茄红素，将有希望成为最重要的一个化学防癌物质。

LYCOPENE AND CANCER

Lycopene is one of the major carotenoids and recent scientific findings indicate that it plays an important role in human health.This article summarizes the dietary sources,biological synthesis,physicochemical properties and various biological effects of lycopene,especially,the anticarcinogenic effect which is related to it's antioxidative activities.Numerous epidemiological studies have demonstrated that lycopene has protective effects on some type of cancer,e.g.,prostate cancer and digestive tract cancers.In vitro and vivo studies on growth of tumor cells also suport this conclusion.Thus suggests lycopene may well be a promising chemopreventive agent which merits extensive characterization.