Pizza Protects Against Cancer? That May Be Stretching It!

The BBC stretched a bit to get the headline:

Eating pizza “cuts cancer risk”

“Researchers claim eating pizza regularly reduced the risk of developing oesophageal cancer by 59%. The risk of developing colon cancer also fell by 26% and mouth cancer by 34%, they claimed. The secret could be lycopene, an antioxidant chemical in tomatoes, which is thought to offer some protection against cancer, and which gives the fruit its traditional red colour.”

You could get the lycopene without eating the pizza… but, OK, at least they are giving the credit to the lycopene in the tomatoes! Even though they call it a “chemical” rather than a naturally occurring nutritional component of the herb.