Table 1.

An illustration of the nutraceutical impact of lycopene against diseases.

Diseases	Issue	Dose of Lycopene	Subjected Time	Role/Activity of Lycopene	References
Cancer	Loss of gap junctional communication (GJC)	4–8 mg	3–12 months	Suppression of carcinogen formation.	[92]
		60 mg	9 weeks	GJC is boosted by a lycopene oxidation product.	[66,122]
		50 mg/kg	5 to 7 days	Metabolite of lycopene, can enhance connexln 43, which is linked to GJC.	[116,123]
	Apoptosis	10, 40, 120 mg/kg	9 weeks	Lycopene triggers apoptosis in cells.	[124]
	Melanoma	10 mg/kg 15 mg/day	5 weeks 12 weeks	Lycopene inhibits melanoma development.	[121,125]
	Mammary and endometrial cancer	76 to 154 mg	14 days	Lycopene inhibits the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1R) signaling pathway.	[125,126,127]
	Prostate and colon cancer	10–30 mg	3 to 5 days	Inhibit Ras signaling.	[26,128]
	ovarian cancer	20–40 mg/kg	18 weeks	Downregulation of STAT3 reduces tumor development.	[129]
	Lung cancer	5 mg/kg	16 weeks	Inhibits lung cancer.	[87]
	Oral cancer	5 mg/kg	16 weeks	ROS scavenger.	[87]
Vitamin A deficiency		10–2400 mg	90 days	Upregulate signaling pathways	[130]
Inflammatory Diseases	Brain tissue inflammation	50, 100, 150 mg/kg	24 weeks	Lycopene boosts antioxidant gene expression, inflammatory mediators.	[17,119]
		60 mg/kg	7 days	Lycopene helps to prevent inflammation by lowering the levels of plasma interleukin (IL)-6 and TNF.	[131,132]
Skin Diseases	Photodamage by UV-B	10 mg/kg	5 weeks	Lycopene inhibits epidermal ornithine decarboxylase. Prevents DNA damage.	[121,133]
	Atopic dermatitis (AD)	100 mg	7 days	The activation of nuclear hormone receptor signaling pathways.	[134].
	Photo aging	2.5–10 µM	24 h	Lycopene gel provided superior photoaging protection.	[135]
Cardiovascular diseases		2 mg/day	12–20 weeks	Lycopene reduces atherosclerotic plaques.	[136,137]
Bacterial infection		50, 100, 150 mg/kg	24 weeks	Lycopene stimulates immune response.	[119,138]
Age-related macular degeneration		4 mg/kg/day	10 weeks	Lycopene is capable to quench singlet oxygen in the eye.	[139]
Diabetes		10 mg/kg	5 weeks	Enhanced antioxidant enzymes, suppresses RAGE expression, increased NF-B expression.	[140,141]
Infertility		4–8 mg	3–12 months	Boosted antioxidants, reduced lipid peroxidation, decreased DNA damage in spermatozoa.	[92,142]
Neurobehavioral deficits and poorer cognition		10 mg/kg	15 days	Increased cognition, increased brain’s antioxidant, nitric oxide pathways are inhibited.	[143,144,145,146]
Alzheimer disease		30 mg	5 weeks	Reduced mitochondrial dysfunction, reduced inflammatory cytokine.	[147,148,149]
Parkinson disease		15, 30, 45 mg/kg/day	12 weeks	Induction of ROS and neurobehavioral deficits.	[150,151,152]
Bone diseases		50 mg/kg/day	10 weeks	Regulation of metabolism, osteoclast differentiation, osteoblasts upregulation.	[153,154,155]