Chemopreventive Mechanisms of Natural Products in Oral, Mammary and Skin Carcinogenesis: An Overview

摘要

Cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and represents a tremendous burden to theindividual, family and society. External factors such as tobacco, chemicals, radiation, viruses and internal factors such asinherited mutations and immune status may act together or in sequence to initiate or promote carcinogenesis. Cancerchemoprevention is recognized as the most promising and novel approach to prevent, inhibit or reverse the carcinogenicprocesses by intervention with natural products or synthetic chemical substances. A large number of traditional medicinalplants and their active principles were reported to have chemopreventive properties. Chemopreventive agents may act onone or several steps [initiation, promotion, progression] of carcinogenesis. Agents that possess antimutagenic, anticarcinogenic,inhibitory effects on cell proliferation, antioxidant function and modulating effect on carcinogen detoxificationare considered as good chemopreventive agents. The aim of the present review paper is to provide the list of chemopreventiveagents and their mechanism of actions, reported for the past 10 to 15 years, against chemical carcinogen inducedoral, mammary and skin carcinogenesis.