Preventing blood clotting with tomato extract

The Facts:
* A supplement containing tomato extract was given to 90 healthy people in this study to find out if tomatoes have any effect on blood clotting.
* Blood samples collected from people who had taken the tomato extract did not clot as easily as blood taken from people who had not taken the extract.
* An amount of extract equivalent to 6 tomatoes was found to be more effective than 2 tomatoes. The authors suggest that tomatoes may be effective at reducing the risk of thrombosis.

Shaun’s comment: You don’t want your platelets to be too sticky! Platelets are part of the blood clotting system and too much clotting can cause blockages in blood vessels, leading to conditions such as heart attacks and strokes. This is great research, as the researchers have built on the laboratory findings that tomato extracts reduce platelet activity. This study has looked at whether the same effect occurs in humans, and the great news is that it does. The fact that there is a dose-response relationship (i.e. more tomatoes leads to a bigger effect) adds more weight still.

Study reference:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/84/3/561