Nutraceuticals for Prevention and Treatment of Cancer
Neeladrisingha Das, Sandip Nathani, Viney Kumar, Himanshu Agrawal, Debabrata Sircar, Partha Roy · 2022
Cancer is a deceptive disease prevailing globally and impacting mankind worldwide. Some of the key complications that make the treatment more intractable are metastasis, cancer stem cell population, and drug resistance. With each passing day, the advancement of scientific knowledge has led to a better understanding of the disease and subsequent development of chemotherapeutic drugs, as well as other mode of treatments. Current cancer therapies like chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery although shown potent therapeutic impact but are associated with multifaceted side effects, which compromise with patient's health. Driven by the desire to ameliorate the side effects of these drugs, researchers are currently focusing on the alternative and complementary medicines, which mainly include natural products. Nutraceuticals, an interdisciplinary area of nutrition and pharmaceuticals, are natural plant and animal products with potential bioactivity and an emerging strategy for treatment and prevention of various diseases. Series of evidence show a progressive correlation between nutrition, health, and various chronic illnesses including cancer. Progression of cancer involves a complex cellular and molecular signaling cascade leading to tumor development. Several studies were devised to proclaim the therapeutic impact of nutraceuticals for prevention and management of cancer progression either by altering or inhibiting these signaling cascades. Presently, many well-documented nutraceuticals are available commercially in different forms such as tablets, powder, vials, capsules, and so on. Delivery of these nutraceuticals can be through various routes such as oral, dermal, ophthalmic, and many others based on the diseases being targeted. Although, acceptance and popularity of these nutraceuticals are very high, some factors like bioavailability, quality control, safety, authenticity need much attention and in-depth study to decipher their therapeutic potential on a global scale. Hence, the goal of this chapter is to assess the current understanding of implementing nutraceuticals in cancer management and the future of nutraceuticals as an alternative therapy.