Prebiotic Effect of Lycopene and Dark Chocolate on Gut Microbiome with Systemic Changes in Liver Metabolism, Skeletal Muscles and Skin in Moderately Obese Persons

Table 3

Changes in sebum, and corneocyte parameters of the skin after supplementation with GA lycopene for one month.

Parameters before and after 4 weeks of trial	Groups with GA Lycopene supplementation
	I	II	III	IV	V
Sebum droplet size, in μm
before	4.6 ± 1.11	3.96 ± 0.17	3.72 ± 0.43	3.89 ± 0.21	4.9 ± 0.53
after	5.1 ± 0.75	4.14 ± 0.11	4.20 ± 0.88	3.94 ± 0.22	4.9 ± 0.57
Corneocyte exfoliation rate^§
before	66 ± 6.8	82 ± 7.8	83 ± 9.3	87 ± 9.5	61 ± 6.2
after	63 ± 6.2	73 ± 12.0	76 ± 7.7	67 ± 13.5	60 ± 6.9
Corneocyte damage
before	4.2 ± 0.98	7.19 ± 2.47	3.40 ± 0.97	3.50 ± 1.16	2.0 ± 1.98
after	2.5 ± 0.43	3.80 ± 1.23	2.41 ± 0.76	2.17 ± 0.52	1.8 ± 1.23

p < 0.05, p < 0.001.
as an average number of single corneocytes in stratum cornea, as an average number of cross-linked damaged corneocyte clusters in stratum cornea; each parameter was calculated in 40 randomly selected microscopic areas (x 1,000).