Move over spinach, green tomatoes take the limelight for muscle growth

A natural compound found in green tomatoes stimulates muscle growth, improves muscle strength and endurance and protects against muscle wasting, says research in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The team involved previously found a compound in apple peel is a muscle-boosting agent. Now they say that tomatidine – the compound in green tomatoes – is even more potent for building muscle and protecting against muscle atrophy (wasting that is caused by ageing, which predisposes people to falls and fractures).

“Muscle atrophy causes many problems for people, their families, and the health care system in general,” says Dr Christopher Adams, who is involved in the work. “However, we lack an effective way to prevent or treat it. Exercise certainly helps, but it’s not enough and not very possible for many people who are ill or injured.”

Tomatidine seems to generate changes in gene expression that are essentially opposite to the changes that occur in muscle cells when people are affected by muscle atrophy. Healthy mice supplemented with tomatidine grew bigger muscles, became stronger and could exercise longer. And tomatidine prevented and treated muscle atrophy.

Although the mice fed tomatidine had larger muscles, their overall body weight did not change because they also lost fat, suggesting that the compound may also have potential for treating obesity.

“Green tomatoes are safe to eat in moderation,” Dr Adams says. “But we don’t know how many green tomatoes a person would need to eat to get a dose of tomatidine similar to what we gave the mice. We also don’t know if such a dose of tomatidine will be safe for people, or if it will have the same effect in people as it does in mice. We are working hard to answer these questions, hoping to find relatively simple ways that people can maintain muscle mass and function, or if necessary, regain it.”