Does Calcium Intake Wipe out Lycopene Absorption?
This blog has an article on possible health benefits of obtaining lycopene from tomato products and supplements. However, a study (1) suggests that consuming calcium at the same time as lycopene undoes the possible benefits. Specially, the study had people eat tomato sauce plus or minus a calcium carbonate supplement (500 mg of calcium). The researchers then followed lycopene appearance in the blood plasma for the next 3 hours. They found 84% less blood lycopene accumulation from the sauce when the calcium was also consumed. One solution here is to separate calcium and lycopene intakes, but that may not be always practical. So, are all bets off for getting any good from lycopene if you take some calcium at the same time? Well, as ESPN sports analyst Lee Corso says: “Not so fast my friend!” Three studies say the situation may not be so bad (with the last one giving the strongest argument).
First off, maybe dairy calcium or calcium supplements other than carbonate don’t do as much damage. A little support for the dairy part comes from a study where a lycopene supplement was taken daily for 8 weeks with milk (2). Although no comparison was made to taking the lycopene without milk, the plasma lycopene increases after 8 weeks suggest that some decent absorption occurred. Unfortunately, there is one interpretation limitation here. The lycopene was given in a water dispersible beadlet. This setup may have protected against any bad calcium effects.
Another consideration was actually brought up by the authors of the research paper that showed the negative calcium effect (1). They noted that only going three hours out may not give a full picture. This concern is reenforced by another study (3). In that research, blood serum lycopene accumulation was followed after consumption of a tomato paste-oil mix. This study found that lycopene transfer into the serum occurs rather slowly (peak at 15.6 to 32.6 hours depending on the amount of lycopene eaten). Therefore, if calcium supplements mainly slow down lycopene absorption rather than strongly inhibiting it, the 3 hour study wouldn’t have shown this.
Finally, there is a study (4) where a very high dose of calcium carbonate was given twice a day for 6 months (calcium = 1000 mg x 2/day for 2000 mg total daily dose). The people in the study were not screened for lycopene intake, but most were not likely eating a high lycopene diet. After 6 months, serum lycopene went down by an average of 16%. However, the individual variation was high enough that the average decrease was not statistically significant (meaning the group’s average decrease may have been just random fluctuations). Still, let’s say there was a 16% difference. This is a worst case scenario; a very high calcium intake was combined with a not very high lycopene intake. A different scenario where the calcium is less and lycopene is more likely shrinks the calcium effect. Maybe the effect doesn’t drop to zero, but it could go well below 10%. That would still allow plenty of lycopene to absorb and give health benefits.
I would like to see more research in this area. For now, I am comfortable saying that combining calcium and lycopene intakes probably doesn’t mean disaster for lycopene absorption.
- Borel P, Desmarchelier C, Dumont U, Halimi C, Lairon D, Page D, Sébédio JL, Buisson C, Buffière C, Rémond D. Dietary calcium impairs tomato lycopene bioavailability in healthy humans. Br J Nutr 2016;116:2091-2096.
- Devaraj S, Mathur S, Basu A, Aung HH, Vasu VT, Meyers S, Jialal I. A dose-response study on the effects of purified lycopene supplementation on biomarkers of oxidative stress. J Am Coll Nutr 2008;27:267-273.
- Viana M, Crowell JA, Murray J, Tiller P, Bowen PE. Single-dose pharmacokinetic study of lycopene delivered in a well-defined food-based lycopene delivery system (tomato paste-oil mixture) in healthy adult male subjects. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2004;13:850-60.
- Chai W, Cooney RV, Franke AA, Bostick RM. Effects of calcium and vitamin D supplementation on blood pressure and serum lipids and carotenoids: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial. Ann Epidemiol 2013;23:564-570.