Healthcare is one of the most common news stories over the past couple of months. For seven years, Republicans have been promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). They’ve had seven years to come up with an acceptable and workable replacement for Obamacare, but like a school kid given an assignment to write a research paper, Republicans didn’t start working on their replacement until the last minute. And like many of these last-minute research papers, the end product leaves a great deal to be desired.

Under Obamacare, millions of policies have been cancelled or dropped because more and more health insurance providers were losing too much money on them. The premiums that weren’t cancelled have been spiraling higher and higher.

With the uncertain future of Obamacare and the yet to be passed GOP ‘Better Care’ healthcare plan, many healthcare insurance providers are uncertain about the history of their policies and premiums. The American people are also living in a time of uncertainty, not knowing if their existing plans will continue to or be replaced by something else.

Due to the uncertainty of healthcare coverage and costs in the near future, many people are looking for ways to reduce their risk of developing costly diseases or conditions. That’s why a new report may be encouraging for many people.

It’s simple. Eat fresh and cooked tomatoes.

Why?

Because they can help protect you from developing some of the most common forms of skin cancer. New research has showed that the lycopene found in tomatoes help protect the skin from the cancerous effects of the sun. However, it’s not as simple as just taking lycopene.

“This latest study is big news, but it’s not too surprising since studies have shown for years that tomato paste can protect against short-term damage from the sun. One study showed that volunteers who ate tomato paste daily for 12 weeks saw a whopping 33 percent increase in sun protection. (As a bonus, they also found that the study participants had increased levels of procollagen, which is the precursor of collagen, the protein responsible for keeping skin smooth and supple.)”

“The chemical behind the magic of tomatoes is called lycopene, and it’s a carotenoid found in all tomato products but especially concentrated in cooked tomatoes. One of the primary purposes of carotenoids in plant biology is to protect them from the sun, and it seems that we can cash in on that protective effect when we eat plants that contain high levels of carotenoids such as lycopene. However, because supplementing with lycopene is less effective than eating tomato products, researchers suspect that other phytochemicals in tomatoes may play yet-to-be-identified roles in protecting us from the sun. The catch with the new study showing a link between tomatoes and cancer risk is that it wasn’t a human study. It was found that mice who were given tomato in powdered form developed fewer carcinomas than those who weren’t given tomato products.”

So, eating tomatoes can help lower your risk of developing skin cancer which in turn can help lower your medical expenses.

However, before diving into a bowl of fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce, there is one thing to consider. Some nutritionists claim that acidic foods like tomatoes can lead to inflammation in the heart which in turn leads to heart disease. Most of the medical community dispute these claims, but dentists also offer a word of caution on a large consumption of acidic foods like tomatoes and citrus and that’s because the acid slowly eats away the enamel layer on your teeth. Also, be warned that much of the pasta one often consumes with their tomato sauce can not only help put on the pounds, but can also cause one’s blood sugar level to increase

Judge for yourself, but if you spend a lot of time in the sun, as I do with my gardening and yard work, tomatoes will probably be on my menu, especially since I have lot of tomatoes growing just feet from my back door.