"Tomato pill" can beat heart disease

[tomwaits]

I am a scientific ignoramus, so maybe someone else can shed some light on this BBC article. Should I dismiss it as wishful thinking? Or should I go stock up on ateronon?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8076556.stm

Scientists say a natural supplement made from tomatoes, taken daily, can stave off heart disease and strokes.

The tomato pill contains an active ingredient from the Mediterranean diet - lycopene - that blocks "bad" LDL cholesterol that can clog the arteries.

Ateronon, made by a biotechnology spin-out company of Cambridge University, is being launched as a dietary supplement and will be sold on the high street.

Experts said more trials were needed to see how effective the treatment is.

Preliminary trials involving around 150 people with heart disease indicate that Ateronon can reduce the oxidation of harmful fats in the blood to almost zero within eight weeks, a meeting of the British Cardiovascular Society will be told at Ateronon's launch on Monday.

[Bikewer]

Would that it were true.... I am currently taking a statin drug (have been for about 15 years) and have recently had to add another drug as the Simvastatin is not lowering the LDL to the desired level.
This is a rather nasty doesn't-quite-dissolve-in-water powder that I have drink once a day....Icky.
A "tomato pill" sounds preferable....

[blutoski]

Key phrase: Experts said more trials were needed to see how effective the treatment is.

This means they are admitting they're not able to say it does anything at all, actually.

It's important to have independent replication.

[wackyvorlon]

Odd. I dug up the British Cardiovascular Society website, and they have a medical news section discussing new research. A search of this found no mention of this "tomato pill".

On the Ateronon website:

http://www.ateronon.com/About-Ateronon.aspx

They use a lot of language that sets off my woo-ometer. For one, they call it natural. They also refer to it being an anti-oxidant. Evidence these days is showing that anti-oxidants play a more complex role in human physiology than that being claimed. They are also offering it for sale. This makes me very suspicious.

[Big Les]

The doc pushing it is big into alt med in general I understand.

Thread on Bad Science about it here;
http://www.badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9347

[casebro]

Bikewer, has that nasty powder been shown to actually lower CAD, or only lower cholesterol? That is a fact for some treatments. Lycopene might be the same.

My reading is that Statins actual modus operandi is as an anti-immune thing, I believe the cholesterol is a related, but less significant, symptom.

And I didn't think Lycopene pills are new to the scene. Are they?

[jasonpatterson]

And I didn't think Lycopene pills are new to the scene. Are they?

Definitely not. Heck, every watermelon in the grocery store here has a sticker that says something like, "Leader in Lycopene!" It's been included in some multivitamins for a few years at least.

[wackyvorlon]

I notice also that the website for Ateronon doesn't cite any of these supposed studies.