Dietary Polyphenols: Promising Adjuvants for Colorectal Cancer Therapies

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major cancer type and a leading cause of death worldwide. Despite advances in therapeutic management, the current medical treatments are not sufficient to control metastatic disease. Treatment-related adverse effects and drug resistance strongly contribute to therapy failure and tumor recurrence. Combination therapy, involving cytotoxic treatments and non-toxic natural compounds, is arousing great interest as a promising more effective and safer alternative. Polyphenols, a heterogeneous group of bioactive dietary compounds mainly found in fruit and vegetables, have received great attention for their capacity to modulate various molecular pathways active in cancer cells and to affect host anticancer response. This review provides a summary of the most recent (i.e., since 2016) preclinical and clinical studies using polyphenols as adjuvants for CRC therapies. These studies highlight the beneficial effects of dietary polyphenols in combination with cytotoxic drugs or irradiation on both therapy outcome and drug resistance. Despite substantial preclinical evidence, data from a few pilot clinical trials are available to date with promising but still inconclusive results. Larger randomized controlled studies and polyphenol formulations with improved bioavailability are needed to translate the research progress into clinical applications and definitively prove the added value of these molecules in CRC management.

Nuciferine Inhibits TMEM16A in Dietary Adjuvant Therapy for Lung Cancer

“…Dietary adjuvant therapy is a personalized treatment method in which functional foods are added to the patient’s basic diet to achieve the purpose of treatment according to the patient’s individual condition. Dietary adjuvant therapy has been widely used in adjuvant therapy along with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. , There are no side effects of dietary adjuvant therapy, and cheap food materials will not economically burden the patients . Furthermore, dietary adjuvant therapy does not produce a strong sense of pain, such as that of surgery and radiotherapy, which is of considerable benefit to cancer patients who have been suffering from illness for a long time .…”

Pinus mugo Essential Oil Impairs STAT3 Activation through Oxidative Stress and Induces Apoptosis in Prostate Cancer Cells

“…Therefore, new strategies are needed to develop novel therapeutic options and increase the efficacy of current treatments. Many authors suggest combination therapies using conventional chemotherapeutic agents with dietary supplements, as well as phytotherapeutic agents [ 53 , 54 , 55 ]. In this work, we showed that PMEO synergizes with cisplatin in an in vitro synergism study.…”

Nano-Based Drug Delivery of Polyphenolic Compounds for Cancer Treatment: Progress, Opportunities, and Challenges

“…Recently, pharmacological studies have demonstrated that polyphenolic compounds exhibit strong antioxidant effects and display obvious antitumor potential [ 11 , 12 , 13 ] ( Figure 1 ). In the combat against tumors, much attention has been paid to the development of polyphenolic compounds sourced from natural products because of their low toxicities and abundance of resources [ 14 , 15 ]. However, polyphenolic compounds derived from natural products also have some drawbacks, such as low stability, weak targeting ability, and poor solubility and bioavailability, which limit their applications in the clinical treatment of cancers [ 16 , 17 , 18 ].…”