What happened in the brain after three months of tomato paste?

If you have been following my work, you already know I regularly tell men with prostate cancer to eat tomato paste. I put it into the nutrition plans of the men I coach, I talk about it in my courses, and I keep coming back to it because there is a lot happening inside this ordinary food. But this new study caught my attention for a different reason. Researchers gave people tomato paste every day for three months and looked at what happened to their thinking and their brains. And honestly, this deserves a conversation, because when you have prostate cancer, you still have an entire body to look after.

How much tomato paste are we talking about?

The researchers enrolled 47 healthy adults aged 40 to 55, and 42 completed the study, including 14 men and 28 women. Their average age was approximately 47. Each person spent three months eating concentrated tomato paste daily and another three months following a diet that restricted tomatoes and other foods rich in lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes. A one-month break separated the two periods, allowing researchers to compare how the same people performed under both conditions.

The average serving was 35 grams of tomato paste a day, a little over two tablespoons, eaten with their usual meals. The amount was adjusted for body weight, so someone weighing 176 pounds, or 80 kilograms, received 40 grams daily. We are talking about an amount you can stir into beans, spread on bread, or add to a soup without reorganizing your life around it. After three months, roughly 13 weeks, the differences showed up in the tests.

They concentrated better, worked faster, and matched more names to faces

During the tomato period, participants performed better on a task that required them to pick out specific letters while ignoring similar-looking distractions. Compared with the control period, their scores improved by 7.2 points for concentration and 8.3 points for processing speed, without an increase in their error rate. They were getting through the information faster without becoming more careless, which is a useful distinction. Rushing through something and making a mess of it is easy. Processing it faster while maintaining accuracy is what we actually want.

How would this look in real life? An example is reading instructions while the television is playing, or trying to find something in a document full of information you do not need. Your brain has to hold its attention on the relevant details and ignore the rest. These are everyday examples of the abilities tested, although the researchers measured performance in the testing room rather than changes in those daily activities.

And one thing a lot of the men that work with me have told me is that their mind is not as sharp on ADT as it used to be, what is commonly known as “brain fog”. So the tomato paste seemed to help with that in this study.

There was also an improvement in connecting faces with names. Participants learned 12 face-and-name pairs and, after a delay, selected the correct names from several options. Tomato paste improved their score by 0.8 points out of 12 compared with the control period, close to one additional correct match on average. Have you stood in front of someone thinking, “I know you, why the hell can’t I remember your name?”. Well you can now understand why this interests me.

The researchers also looked inside the brain

What’s crazy is that was not simply a random statistical chance or a ‘placebo’ effect… the tomato paste induced changes in the brain. Brain scans in a smaller group showed changes in communication between networks involved in attention and sensory processing. The researchers proposed that these changes reflected more efficient coordination, with less unnecessary interference between networks. They also measured brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, a protein involved in maintaining nerve cells and learning. Its increase was borderline, so the strongest part of this study is the improvement people demonstrated on the thinking tests.

Why I want men with prostate cancer to know this

When you are dealing with prostate cancer, appointments and treatment decisions demand enough of your attention already. Staying mentally sharp matters A LOT.

There is one detail I do not want lost here: the study’s average serving supplied approximately 38 milligrams of lycopene. Tomato products differ in concentration, so two tablespoons of any product will not automatically deliver that amount. The product matters as well as the portion.

This is exactly why I spend time on the practical details with the men I coach. “Eat more tomatoes” is a starting point, sure, but it leaves plenty of questions unanswered. Which product? How much? What goes alongside it, and how does that meal fit your treatment and the rest of your day? 

If you want more evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle strategies for prostate cancer, subscribe to my newsletter for practical weekly guidance.

You can also join my prostate cancer health coaching group, where men use exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle as medicine while supporting each other through every stage of the journey.

And if you want to work 1-to-1 with me to have the most effective approach, inside my private prostate cancer health coaching, I help you choose the right products, work out appropriate portions, and build them into a nutrition plan around your cancer, treatment, and overall health. You receive specific food quantities, meal ideas, and substitutions that work with your lifestyle and preferences. Apply to work with me if you want a clear strategy built specifically for you.