Enjoy life to a ripe old age

WE HEAR so much about the health benefits of a Mediterranean diet yet for all our best intentions it’s not quite as easy to follow here, without the year-round sun and fragrant vegetables and fruit. So scientists have come up with the answer – the wonders of a Mediterranean diet in a pill. It’s the work of Cambridge scientists and, in what is a world first, the all-natural, over-thecounter product has been granted a patent.

Ateronon Heart slows down the build-up of plaque in the arteries, preventing heart disease, and it’s largely thanks to tomatoes.

Tomatoes have long been known as good for health, especially when cooked. The magic ingredient is lycopene, which makes them red, but there have been two problems. The first has always been getting enough in an everyday diet, even in the Med, but a single Ateronon Heart pill contains more lycopene than 2lb of cooked tomatoes.

The second is that lycopene is poorly absorbed by the body in its natural state but now scientists have combined it with milk protein, which enables the body to absorb more.

The result is a simple-to-take food supplement, something that’s a relief to so many of us as heart problems often occur – and get worse – as we get older.

Ateronon Heart is the result of £12m research and development, including a clinical study at Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (Addenbrooke’s).

The research shows that an Ateronon Heart pill a day benefits those with heart problems. It improves the health of blood vessels in those who have suffered heart attacks along with sufferers of angina and other cardiac problems. Those who took the pills for two months saw an improvement in the cells that line the inside of blood vessels, leaving them more than 50 per cent wider by the end of the study.

Heart disease remains the UK’s leading killer, with 160,000 deaths each year, including the 40,000 who die from a stroke. Every seven minutes someone in the UK will have a heart attack and every 12 minutes someone will suffer a stroke.

A million men and nearly 500,000 women are living with the after-effects of a heart attack while 1.2 million men and 900,000 women are living with chronic angina.

There’s so much we can do to help ourselves in the way of diet and lifestyle. We should steer clear of fatty foods and make sure we go for a good walk each day – or even visit the gym.

Along with that, Ateronon Heart can help with the heart’s natural working and has been proved to have a noticeable effect on those who already suffer heart problems.

More studies are taking place with the pill’s developer Cambridge Nutraceuticals set to release findings later this year.

A Mediterranean diet isn’t something that suits all of us so Ateronon Heart – the “tomato pill” – can be the answer.

GEORGE NICHOLS looks at a heart pill with a difference