The 100-Days Oral Toxicity of Tomato Pomace in Healthy Mice

Problem statement: Growing attention is being paid to functional food. The beneficial effect of functional food appears to relate to its bioactive ingredient such as substances containing antioxidant. Therefore, the information about the toxicity of the substances is very much essential to recommend the safety for the substances implication in both clinical and application trials. Herein, we have investigated for the possible sub-chronic toxicity of Lycopersicon esculentum, or commonly known as tomato (a source of antioxidants), was administered orally in the form of dried tomato pomace extract in healthy mice. Approach: Eighty mice (40 males and 40 females) were divided randomly into 4 groups. The first group was the control group and fed with equal volume of distilled water, while the other 3 groups were given a single daily dose of the dried tomato pomace per os at different doses (10, 100 and 500 mg kg^-1 BW) for 100 days. Results: No toxicity was detected with reference to clinical signs, hematology and serum biochemistry data and organ weights. However, the female mice which received the dried tomato pomace at a dose of 10 mg kg^-1 BW showed the reduction of body weight higher than that of the control treated group but female mice were treated with the extract at a dose of 500 mg kg^-1 BW reversed these parameters significantly. Conclusion: This study indicates that tomato pomace consumption has no sub-acute adverse effects and the No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level (NOAEL) doses in mice were 500 mg kg^-1 BW. However, the reduction of body weight after the exact consumption needs further studies.