This Food May Help Lower Liver Fat & Aid Metabolic Health All At Once

If you've ever been told you have fatty liver, you may have left the appointment with a long list of things to change. Eat better, exercise more, lose weight, and somehow keep it all going.

But what if one of the simplest additions to your plate could also help? A new POMOSANO study1 looked at whether eating tomatoes every day could affect liver fat in people with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).

The results add an interesting piece to the bigger picture of how everyday foods may support metabolic health.

About the study

For the randomized POMOSANO trial, researchers recruited 79 adults with MASLD and split them into two groups for six weeks.

One group ate 200 grams of raw tomatoes, roughly two medium tomatoes, plus 50 grams of tomato sauce each day. The other group avoided tomatoes. Everyone else was asked to stick with their usual diet and lifestyle.

Researchers used FibroScan, a quick, painless scan, to measure liver fat before and after the six weeks.

Tomatoes were an interesting food to test because they're a staple of the Mediterranean diet and a rich source of lycopene, a plant compound with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Eating tomatoes was linked to less liver fat

After six weeks, liver fat had decreased in both groups, but the drop was almost twice as large among the tomato eaters. Their liver-fat scores fell by a median of 35 units, compared with 18 units in the tomato-free group.

The change wasn't simply a result of weight loss. The groups didn't have meaningful differences in body weight, BMI, or body fat, including belly fat. That suggests the tomatoes themselves may have played a role.

The researchers didn't see significant differences in liver stiffness, blood sugar, cholesterol, liver enzymes, or inflammation markers. Since the trial lasted only six weeks, those measures may need more time to change.

Why tomatoes might help

Lycopene is one possible explanation, but it isn't the only one. Tomatoes also contain beta-carotene, polyphenols, and other plant compounds that may help protect cells from oxidative stress and support a healthier inflammatory response.

Researchers suggest these compounds could also affect how the liver processes fat.

They may help reduce the amount of new fat the liver makes or encourage the body to break down more of it.

There's also a useful nutrition detail here. Cooking tomatoes can make their lycopene easier for the body to absorb. Since lycopene is fat-soluble, eating tomatoes with some olive oil or another source of fat may help with absorption.

Easy ways to get more tomatoes

You don't need to copy the study menu exactly. A few simple ideas:

The takeaway

Most liver advice begins with the scale. This trial suggests a single food can shift liver fat on its own, with two medium tomatoes and a few spoonfuls of sauce a day linked to a bigger drop over six weeks.

Larger and longer studies will show how lasting that effect is, though tomatoes are an easy staple to keep around in the meantime.