The carbohydrate-rich pizza could be associated with a reduced risk of cancer, according to a report in yesterday's La Repubblica newspaper.
Researchers at a Milan pharmacology centre found that in a study of 8,000 Italians, regular pizza eaters were 59 per cent less likely to contract cancer of the oesophagus, and 26 per cent less likely to get cancer of the colon.
"We knew that tomato sauce was protective against certain tumours, but we certainly didn't expect that pizza as a whole would provide such strong protection," researcher Silvano Gallus told the newspaper.
The surprising findings come at the same time as a new study in the Journal of Nutrition, which found that women with the highest intake of tomato-based foods, including pizza, had a lower risk of heart disease than women who ate less of those foods.
And a high intake lycopene may also be protective against heart disease, suggests the study, the first to investigate association of lycopene levels and cardiovascular disease exclusively in women.
Study leader Howard Sesso, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues, analysed food frequency questionnaires from 719 women, from the ongoing Women's Health Study, who developed heart disease.
Women who consumed seven servings or more of tomato-based foods like tomato sauce and pizza each week, reduced their risk of heart disease by nearly 30 per cent compared to the group with intakes of less than one and a half servings per week. Women who ate more than 10 servings per week had an even more pronounced reduction in risk (65 per cent) for specific cardiovascular disease outcomes such as heart attack or stroke.
While not statistically significant, the strongest association of dietary lycopene with heart disease protection was seen among those participants with a median dietary lycopene intake of 20.2 mg per day. These had a 33 per cent reduction in risk of the disease when compared with women with the lowest dietary lycopene intake (3.3 mg/day).
The findings add to a growing body of research linking lycopene to lower risk of heart disease. The antioxidant has also been shown to improve other risk factors for the condition, such as reducing the marker C-reactive protein in the blood. It could also help reduce blood levels of LDL cholesterol.