Three Months of Tomato Paste May Rewire Brain Connectivity, Early Trial Suggests

A small, three-month, randomized crossover trial in healthy middle-aged adults found that daily consumption of tomato paste (35 g) raised lycopene levels and was associated with modest improvements in attention and associative memory; brain scans in a subset showed tentative changes in large-scale brain network connectivity. However, the imaging was underpowered and unblinded, so results are preliminary and require larger, more rigorous trials to determine if tomato-derived lycopene truly alters brain function.