Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast, a show where we zoom in on the latest

nutrition research and then zoom out to look at how or whether it applies to our own food choices.

I'm your host, Monica Reinagle, and today I want to tell you about some new research

on lycopene and its potential role in improving mood, as well as how that research fits into

the larger context of diet and mental health. Just as a quick review, lycopene is an antioxidant

nutrient in the carotenoid family, and it's a very

colorful nutrient. It's what gives tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruit their rosy color.

If you've heard about lycopene before, it may have been in the context of heart health,

because some studies have suggested that it may

help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.

This latest study, which was published in the journal Food Science and Nutrition,

suggests that lycopene could also have antidepressant effects, at least in mice.

Researchers found that supplementation with lycopene

seemed to lessen certain depressive behaviors in the mice. The treated mice were more

interested in interacting with other mice, for example, more likely to explore their

environment and pursue tasty foods.

Now, obviously, mice are not people, so we want to interpret these findings with caution.

There's actually a long history of using mice to study the effects of stress and depression.

And part of this has involved developing research protocols to measure just how

stressed or depressed a given mouse might feel, because obviously we can't just ask them.

We have to surmise based on their behavior. For example, researchers will measure how long a mouse

will struggle to free itself from an unpleasant or stressful situation. If the mouse gives up more quickly, the researchers interpret that as a sign of despair or hopelessness. So, following an intervention, if that mice shows a little more spunk and struggles for longer,

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