Does eating tomatoes for ten consecutive days kill cancer cells? No, that's not true: No serious research results confirm this claim.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on the TikTok account @kjw5684 (archived here) on January 16, 2024, under the title "암에 좋은 토마토 효능," "Tomato's effect, which is good against cancer," translated from Korean into English by Lead Stories staff.
It opened, as translated:
Eat this for 10 days, cancer cells will be destroyed?
The video continues, as translated: "Tomatoes are good against cancer, contain vitamin A, K - promote antioxidant effect - and lycopene; help cancer cells grow more slowly, such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, and stomach cancer."
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Mar 7 01:14:07 2024 UTC)
According to preclinical studies, tomato has some protective effects (archived here) against prostate cancer. The results of reviewed in vivo studies (archived here) confirmed the anti-cancer activities of lycopene, an antioxidant belonging to the carotenoid group, which is found in tomatoes. A study with mice (archived here) also showed that tomato extract plays a role in limiting the growth of skin tumors like fibrosarcoma.
However, more clinical trial data is needed to support the hypothesis that lycopene is effective against cancer (archived here). Furthermore, no evidence that eating tomatoes for 10 consecutive days destroys cancer cells was found by conducting a Google Scholar search (archived here) with the keywords "tomato AND ten days AND cancer" on March 7, 2024.
