Dietary Botanicals for Chemoprevention of Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer typically develops later in life. Hence, identi‐ fying the botanical compounds that can prevent or delay disease progression may have a positive effect on the quality of life and reduce the healthcare costs of the aging population.[1] Supporting the statement, it could be accepted that the burden of increasing morbidity and mortality due to prostate cancer imposes a need for new, effective measures of prevention in daily life. Chemopreven‐ tion, a prophylactic approach that uses nontoxic natural or synthetic compounds to reverse, inhibit, or prevent cancer by targeting spe‐ cific steps in the carcinogenic pathway, is gaining traction among healthcare practitioners.[2] The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80% of the population of developing countries relies on traditional medicine for their primary care needs. The emergence of resistance to cancer chemotherapy has forced researchers to turn to natural products of plant and marine origin.[3] Additionally, treatments for advanced disease are limited to hormone ablation techniques and palliative care. Thus, new methods of treatment and prevention are necessary for inhibiting disease progression to a hormone refractory state. One of the approaches to control pros‐ tate cancer is prevention through diet, which inhibits one or more neoplastic events and reduces the cancer risk. For centuries, Ayurveda has recommended the use of bitter melon (Momordica charantia) as a functional food to prevent and treat human health related issues.[4] A study conducted by Ru et al. demonstrated that prostate cancer cells treated with bitter melon extract (BME) delayed the progression to high‐grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia in transgenic adenocarcinoma of mouse prostate (TRAMP) mice by 31%. Prostate tissue from BME‐fed mice displayed approximately 51% reduction of proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression. Together, results suggest that oral administration of BME inhibits prostate cancer progression in TRAMP mice by Dietary Botanicals for Chemoprevention of Prostate Cancer