If you are a fan of tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruit, then you’re enjoying multiple health benefits of lycopene.

Lycopene is the pigment in fruits and vegetables that make them red in color. This red pigment is part of the carotenoid family, which includes beta-carotene and lutein.

Lycopene is a very powerful antioxidant or free radical scavenger. And can provide the following benefits.

Antioxidant Health Benefits of Lycopene

As I’ve shared in previous articles, free radicals are unstable molecules that steal electrons from another molecule to stabilize themselves. This action creates a new free radical that then repeats this process. It finally stops when the last free radical steals an electron from a cell wall. This results in inflammation.

Antioxidants are your natural defense against this process.

Antioxidants are molecules that give away one of their outer electrons, which then stabilizes the free radical. The remarkable property of an antioxidant is that it does not become a free radical. It remains stable with or without the electron it gives away.

This means that antioxidants like lycopene can protect you from cellular damage. And significantly reduce the potential for inflammation. This makes the following health benefits of lycopene possible: Read More →