ycopene bioavailability has been studied in humans after chronic ingestion of tomato-based products. The experimental design of these clinical studies varies greatly with respect to the daily lycopene dose as well as the duration of the supplementation. However, the data summarized in Table 4show the increase of plasma lycopene concentration in response to these treatments to be quite consistent with little difference among subjects enrolled in these studies. The main conclusion is that lycopene from fresh tomatoes or tomato juice is poorly absorbed, whereas lycopene from processed tomatoes such as tomato paste is better absorbed. In the present study, we used tomato paste as a positive control, and the observed increase of plasma lycopene is in agreement with the other studies reported in the literature (7,9). In addition, on the basis of measurements of lycopene in human plasma and in BMC, we demonstrate, for the first time, that lycopene in a food-based formulation (lactolycopene) is as bioavailable as lycopene from tomato paste. The results presented here, therefore, confirm that the characteristics of a lycopene-based formulation markedly affect the bioavailability of lycopene, including complexation with proteins, crystal size or environment of lycopene. However, future studies will be required to understand the underlying mechanism.To produce a biological effect, lycopene must first be absorbed by the gut and thereafter reach the tissue of interest. Plasma analysis provides information on what crosses the intestinal barrier but gives no information on how intake affects tissue concentration. However, this important issue is very difficult to assess because tissue biopsies are very invasive and rarely available. An alternative is BMC, which can be collected noninvasively and analyzed for carotenoid content (10). In this study, we showed for the first time the kinetics of uptake of lycopene into BMC, which paralleled the plasma enrichment. Our results emphasize that BMC may represent a good, noninvasive, surrogate tissue for measuring lycopene absorption.