What is Chemoprevention?
Chemoprevention can be defined as the use of chemicals, drugs, food ingredients, vitamins or other substances in the diet to help preventing the incidence of a disease. Sometimes this approach may also work by slowing down a particular disease. The use of vitamin-rich fruits, bran, or other dietary fibers, and cruciferous vegetables in the daily diet as a means of chemoprevention is supported by some epidemiological studies, however, these studies presently are still considered not be totally conclusive in their claim of being chemopreventive. In addition, cancer prevention can be considered as the use of chemical agents or dietary substances to prevent malignancy. The goal is to halt or slow carcinogenesis. The use of chemopreventive agents aims to directly modulate specific steps in carcinogenesis, to prevent DNA damage caused by free radicals, suppress epithelial proliferation, and to promote epithelial differentiation.
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02/20/2014