The Role of Natural Products in the Improvement of Cancer-Associated Cachexia

Abstract

The enormous library of natural products and herbal medicine prescriptions presents endless research avenues. However, the lack of research evidence and trials on cancer-induced cachexia limit the therapeutic potential of natural products. Cancer-induced cachexia is a systemic wasting syndrome characterized by continuous body weight loss with skeletal muscle and adipose tissue atrophy. Cancer cachexia is a problem in itself and reduces the quality of life by lessening the treatment efficacy of anticancer drugs. This review summarizes single natural product extracts for cancer-induced cachexia, not compounds derived from natural products and herbal medicine prescriptions. This article also discusses the effect of natural products on cachexia induced by anticancer drugs and the role of AMPK in cancer-induced cachexia. The article included the mice model used in each experiment to encourage researchers to utilize animal models for research on cancer-induced cachexia in the future.

Carnosol ameliorated cancer cachexia-associated myotube atrophy by targeting P5CS and its downstream pathways

“…The only drug approved for the treatment of cancer cachexia is an endogenous ligand, anamorelin hydrochloride, for the growth hormone release-promoting factor receptor (Garcia-Castillo et al, 2023;Watanabe and Oshima, 2023). To be noted, the treatment of cancer cachexia with herbal medicine has developed rapidly in recent years, and an increased number of active components in herbal medicine had been found to be potential anticachexia agents (Shankar et al, 2021;Han et al, 2023). In our previous study, a bioactive diterpene compound which was found in Lamiaceae spp., carnosol (CS), performed preferable mitigating effects on cancer cachexia-associated muscle atrophy in C26 cancer cachexia model mice (Lu et al, 2021).…”

Treatment of Cachexia in Gastric Cancer: Exploring the Use of Anti-Inflammatory Natural Products and Their Derivatives

“…Furthermore, the prostaglandins derived from EPA are less pro-inflammatory than those produced using arachidonic acid [ 34 ]. FAs have also been shown to reduce acute phase proteins such as C-reactive protein in different types of cancer [ 20 , 21 ].…”

“…The supplements are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or alleviate the effects of the disease as per the regulations of the Food and Drug Administration and so are not regarded as pharmacological therapy [ 19 ]. Therefore, the benefits are that they are often cost-effective, readily available and generally well-tolerated [ 20 ].…”