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REVIEW article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition and Food Science Technology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1519905

A step forward in enhancing the health promoting properties of whole tomato as a functional food to lower the impact of noncommunicable diseases

Provisionally accepted
Pier Giorgio Natali Pier Giorgio Natali 1Mauro Piantelli Mauro Piantelli 2Alessandra Sottini Alessandra Sottini 3Margherita Eufemi Margherita Eufemi 4Cristina Banfi Cristina Banfi 5Luisa Imberti Luisa Imberti 6*
  • 1 Mediterranean Task Force for Cancer Control (www.mtcc-prevention.net), via Pizzo Bernina, 14, 00141 Rome, Rome, Italy
  • 2 Department of Medicine and Aging Sciences, Center for Advanced Studies and Technology (CAST), G. D'Annunzio University, 66100 Chieti, Italy, Chieti, Italy
  • 3 Highly Specialized Laboratory, Diagnostic Department, ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia, Brescia, Italy, Brescia, Italy
  • 4 Department of Biochemical Science "A. Rossi Fanelli", Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine, "La Sapienza" University of Rome, P. le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy;, Rome, Italy
  • 5 Centro Cardiologico Monzino IRCCS, Unit of Functional Proteomics, Metabolomics, and Network Analysis, 20138 Milan, Italy, Milano, Italy
  • 6 Civil Hospital of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Nutritional interventions facilitating the consumption of natural, affordable, and environmentcompatible health-promoting functional foods are a promising strategy for controlling noncommunicable diseases. Given that the complex of tomato micronutrients produces healthier outcomes than lycopene, its major antioxidant component, new strategies to improve the health supporting properties of the berry are ongoing. In this context, a whole tomato food supplement (WTFS), enriched by 2% olive wastewater containing a complex of healthy nutrients with converging biologic activities has recently been developed superior to those present in tomato commodities or obtained with whole tomato conventional processing methods. WTFS equals the antioxidant activity of N-acetyl-cysteine and interferes with multiple inflammation and cellular transformation sustaining metabolic pathways. In interventional studies, WTFS inhibits prostate experimental tumors, and improves benign prostate hypertrophy-associated symptoms with no associated side-effects. Although WTFS may be susceptible to further improvements and clinical scrutiny, its composition embodies the features of advanced functional foods to ease adherence to dietary patterns, i.e., the Mediterranean diet, aimed at contrasting and mitigating the low-grade inflammation thus being interceptive or preventive of non-communicable diseases.

    Keywords: antioxidant, Functional Food, mediterranean diet, Non-communicable diseases, Tomato

    Received: 04 Nov 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Natali, Piantelli, Sottini, Eufemi, Banfi and Imberti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Luisa Imberti, Civil Hospital of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.