Can Dietary and Pharmacological Supplements Prevent Colorectal Cancer ? COLORECTAL CANCER

14 For some time, there has been an effort made to identify and evaluate dietary components and chemical compounds (chemopreventive agents) that could prevent, inhibit or change the course of colorectal (CR) carcinogenesis (1). These efforts were based on clinical and lay observations, beliefs and epidemiological correlations, that certain foods or additives had beneficial anti-carcinogenic properties. These include natural constituents of foods, e.g. vitamins and minerals; medications, e.g. aspirin, that have non-chemopreventive attributes; chemicals derived from foods and believed to have anticarcinogenic properties; chemicals promoted for their anti-carcinogenic properties, e.g. COX-2 inhibitors. The sites of action and mechanisms of chemoprevention are numerous and vary from agent to agent (1) (Table 1 and Figure 1). Once an agent has been identified as possibly having anticancer properties, it is usually evaluated in an animal model, which is often Can Dietary and Pharmacological Supplements Prevent Colorectal Cancer? COLORECTAL CANCER, SERIES #5