Research

Hormonal

Tomatidine extends lifespan and healthspan in C. elegans by inducing mitophagy through the SKN-1/Nrf2 pathway.

Tomatidine, found in unripe tomatoes, may support healthy aging by clearing damaged mitochondria. However, current evidence is limited to worms and cell cultures. No human dosage or safety data exists yet. Do not self-prescribe high doses based on this research.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Here we show that tomatidine extends lifespan and healthspan in C. elegans... Tomatidine improves many C. elegans behaviors related to healthspan and muscle health... Mechanistically, tomatidine induces mitochondrial hormesis by mildly inducing ROS production, which in turn activates the SKN-1/Nrf2 pathway and possibly other cellular antioxidant response pathways, followed by increased mitophagy.
Evandro Fei Fang et al. · Scientific Reports · 2017

Why this rating

Evidence is from C. elegans, primary rat neurons, and human cell lines, but not human clinical trials.

Source

Tomatidine enhances lifespan and healthspan in C. elegans through mitophagy induction via the SKN-1/Nrf2 pathway

Evandro Fei Fang et al. · Scientific Reports · 2017

DOI 10.1038/srep46208

mechanism_onlyCited 182×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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