"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is a well-known slogan that emphasizes the importance of consuming an adequate amount of fruits and vegetables as part of the daily diet. In review work by Steinmetz and Potter, the positive link between cancer prevention and consumption of fruit and vegetable was evidenced by 206 human epidemiological studies and 22 animal studies. In ancient societies of various origins all over the world, pharmacological perspective of nature herbal remedy predominated human history until the development of modern medical system. Even with the exceptional development of medical technology within decades, people are now distanced by various unfavorable toxic side effects that frequently accompany the fast-acting characteristic of therapeutic drug treatment and start seeking for gentler and less invasive alternations from natural sources. The theory of Hippocrates from 2500 years ago, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food", then become the mainstay of modern belief in protective and disease preventing dietary practice. As documented in many prevailing scientific research, plant origin bioactive compounds of plant origin, referred as phytochemicals, are linked with promising health benefits in both disease prevention and treatment. Being associated with prevention of chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, arthritis, and asthma, etc., more scientific researches are dedicated to the discovery and elucidation of bio-functionality, and incorporation of phytochemical into novel food products or dietary supplements. However, most of the remarkable findings in phytochemical bio-efficacy are either investigated using in vitro cell model or in vivo animal model operating delivery pathway other than oral application. Compare with other delivery routes, oral ingestion of phytochemical is highly variable among subjects, lack of dose linearity, and therapeutic failure.
展开▼
