Striving4Zen

Tomato Party, originally uploaded by espion.

Is there such a thing as a "sunscreen" you can safely eat?

To find out, volunteers were exposed to ultraviolet light to measure how quickly their skin would burn. Then after eating about four tablespoons of tomato paste a day for three months, they were exposed to the same level of ultraviolet rays.

The tomato paste resulted in a 30 percent reduction in sun damage. The reason, Dr. Oz says, is lycopene—an antioxidant found in tomatoes, especially in the reddest ones—which replenishes skin cells.

"What lycopene does is it attaches to key cells in your skin. The sun is attacking your body and it's helping your body at the same time. The skin's major function is to let enough sun through so you can convert cholesterol to vitamin D, because you've got to have vitamin D. But at the same time, it needs to protect you against the sun destroying all of your folic acid. So how does it do that? It does that by having its own antioxidant system always there to protect you. And how do you replenish it? Things like lycopene."

In addition to protecting skin from sun's burning rays, lycopene can also prevent wrinkles by keeping your elastic skin tissues from losing their tenseness.

Thanks!