Assessing the anticancer effects associated with food products and/or nutraceuticals using in vitro and in vivo preclinical development-related pharmacological tests.

Authors: LEFANC, FLORENCE - Free University Of Brussels; Tabanca, Nurhayat; KISS, ROBERT - Fonds National De La Recherche Scientifique, Belgium

Submitted to: Seminars in Cancer Biology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/4/2017
Publication Date: 6/4/2017
Citation: Lefanc, F., Tabanca, N., Kiss, R. 2017. Assessing the anticancer effects associated with food products and/or nutraceuticals using in vitro and in vivo preclinical development-related pharmacological tests. Seminars in Cancer Biology.(serial online)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcancer.2017.06.004

Interpretive Summary: A cancer protective effect from plant-derived foods would support a cancer protective effect. Many phytochemicals have been shown to be biologically active and they may interact to prevent cancer formation or cancer progress. Experimental studies have provided growing evidence for the beneficial action of naturally occurring bioactive compounds on multiple cancer-related biological pathways including differentiation, proliferation, cell cycling, and apoptosis, angiogenesis, oxidative stress, and inflammation. These various active components may interact additively or synergistically to protect against cancer. However, much more data are needed before any of these associations can be used to support specific health recommendations.

Technical Abstract: The current review is part of a special issue entitled “Role of dietary pattern, foods, nutrients and nutraceuticals in supporting cancer prevention and treatment”; it deals with the description of a pharmacological strategy aiming to actually determine the potential contribution of food-related components as anticancer agents against established cancer. This means that the current review does not relate to chemoprevention, which is a subject analyzed in several other reviews of the current special issue. The current review thus focuses on i) the biological events that currently represent a barrier against any type of treatments to cure certain types of cancers, including mainly metastatic ones, ii) the in vitro and in vivo pharmacological pre-clinical tests that could be used to analyze the real potential anticancer effects of food-related components, and iii) some examples of food-related components with actual anticancer effects. Therefore, the current review does not represent a catalog-based listing of food-related components with more or less anticancer activity but a pharmacological strategy with the help of which any researcher can challenge the potential anticancer activity of any food-related components. The current review also highlights the fact that cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy should restrain the use of “food complements” without an actual supervision by a medical nutritionist. In contrast, an equilibrated diet including among others the food-related components listed in the current review should be beneficial for cancer patients who are not undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy.