Pizza Fights Cancer!..and other things the FDA won’t let you say

Appearing in the most recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is a study finding insufficient evidence to allow food manufacturers to label their tomato-containing products as Cancer Fighters.

I find myself pleased and then generally disquieted about the whole affair.

First of all we’ve been told for years now that lycopene - the molecule that gives tomatoes their red color - can fight cancer. The original, and still best studied cancer is prostate. Various studies tracking dietary habits have found that men who eat more tomato products have lower rates of prostate cancer - the relationship holds for foods like pizza and lasagna and spaghetti as lycopene is a fat-soluble antioxidant, so eating it with a small amount of fat is good.

Of course there have also beens studies that find a very limited effect, such as this one (though it did find significant protection for men with a family history of prostate cancer who ate fatty-tomato foods). And then there was the super-fun realization that lycopene on its own doesn’t seem to have any cancer-fighting ability, at least in rats.  You need the whole tomato.

But see here’s where it gets interesting. In 2004 the FDA received applications (from people like Heinz) for a qualified health claim.  When evaluating food claims that go on labels, the FDA doesn’t count dietary survey or observational studies. To count, it must be a controlled trial where researchers manipulate diet (ie this group eats 5 tomatoes a day, that group 3 and that group 0), or they don’t think it’s strong enough evidence.

And because no one has really done this work, they can’t recommend that food companies be allowed to label their pizza, ketchup or pasta sauce with NOW FIGHTS CANCER!!!!!! NOW FIGHTS EVEN MORE CANCER! STOP USING SUNSCREEN, JUST SLATHER ON KETCHUP!

Which, to be honest, is good. Especially in the case of dubiously health foods like pizza or lasagna, where sure! they have tomatoes! but they also have lots of shitty cheese, sugar, preservatives and refined carbohydrates, but now they are HEALTH FOOD. Sort of like Oreos with ZERO TRANS FATS!  Adding a simple health claim for a very non-simple food/health relationship is could, in theory, promote worse overall food decisions because it removes the brain from the equation.

And let’s be honest. Who hasn’t said - I will eat these very healthy and delicious potato chips because they are made with OLIVE OIL, OKAY?

But then again, I can’t really kick up my heals at this one, either. Because a) I hate that companies even ask for this kind of over-simplifying, research-distorting slogan crap, because my guess is that eventually there WILL be enough evidence for them to go through with it because b) tomatoes really DO seem to help ward away cancer. And the FDA rejection is just another kind of mixed message. And why don’t observational studies count for anything when they make headline news (hence public information) all the time? And is anyone really stupid enough to think that their Pizza Hut Meat Lovers Deep Dish is good for you?