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Kumar et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2021;7:51 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2021.125
Metastasis and Treatment

Editorial Open Access

Dietary phytochemicals and their role in cancer
chemoprevention

1
Shashank Kumar , Sanjay Gupta 2,3,4,5,6
1
Molecular Signaling and Drug Discovery Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, School of Basic and Applied Sciences, Central
University of Punjab, Bathinda 151401, India.
2
Department of Urology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
3
Department of Urology, The Urology Institute, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
4
Department of Nutrition, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
5
Divison of General Medical Sciences, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
6
Department of Urology, Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Correspondence to: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, PhD, MS, Department of Urology, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid
Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA. E-mail: sanjay.gupta@case.edu
How to cite this article: Kumar S, Gupta S. Dietary phytochemicals and their role in cancer chemoprevention. J Cancer Metastasis
Treat 2021;7:51. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2021.125
Received: 27 May 2021 Accepted: 3 Jun 2021 First online: 8 Jun 2021

Academic Editor: Lucio Miele Copy Editor: Xi-Jun Chen Production Editor: Xi-Jun Chen

Epidemiological studies suggest a close association between diet and cancer initiation, which provides
evidence that the dietary components may be effectively developed as chemopreventive agents . These
[1]
pieces of evidence are further supported by several case-control and cohort studies, which overwhelmingly
[2,3]
support a converse association between the intake of phytochemicals and cancer risk . A number of
clinical studies have been conducted demonstrating that dietary phytochemicals have the ability to inhibit
[4]
tumorigenesis . Components presenting in fruit and vegetables termed “bioactive” phytochemicals belong
to several classes of micronutrients, including flavonoids, polyphenols, and dietary fiber. These components
have the ability to reduce the cancer risk alone or by interactions between them.

Cancer chemoprevention is a means to control, slow, or reverse of cancer occurrence by administrating one
or more synthetic or naturally occurring compounds . Chemoprevention also implies the prevention of
[5]
precancerous lesions, such as pre-invasive neoplasia, dysplasia, or intraepithelial neoplasia, depending on
the organ system . Therefore, phytochemicals serve as chemopreventive agents that could be beneficial for
[5]
the prevention of all aspects of carcinogenesis.

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
indicate if changes were made.

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