Nutraceuticals and diet in human health and disease. The special issue at a glance

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

This first Special Issue collects fifteen original research and up-to-date review articles addressing the beneficial properties of herbal products, nutrient supplements, dietary regimens, and functional food for the complementary therapy of human pathologies. In these articles, renowned scholars present and discuss the curative effects and the molecular mechanisms of action of nutraceuticals, medicinal herbs, and dietary regimens that have been proven effective in the treatment of cancers, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, hearth arrythmia and neurodegenerative disorders.

Related collections

Most cited references 47

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Ketogenic diet in the treatment of cancer – Where do we stand?

Daniela D. Weber, Sepideh Aminzadeh-Gohari, Julia Tulipan … (2019)

Background Cancer is one of the greatest public health challenges worldwide, and we still lack complementary approaches to significantly enhance the efficacy of standard anticancer therapies. The ketogenic diet, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet with adequate amounts of protein, appears to sensitize most cancers to standard treatment by exploiting the reprogramed metabolism of cancer cells, making the diet a promising candidate as an adjuvant cancer therapy. Scope of review To critically evaluate available preclinical and clinical evidence regarding the ketogenic diet in the context of cancer therapy. Furthermore, we highlight important mechanisms that could explain the potential antitumor effects of the ketogenic diet. Major conclusions The ketogenic diet probably creates an unfavorable metabolic environment for cancer cells and thus can be regarded as a promising adjuvant as a patient-specific multifactorial therapy. The majority of preclinical and several clinical studies argue for the use of the ketogenic diet in combination with standard therapies based on its potential to enhance the antitumor effects of classic chemo- and radiotherapy, its overall good safety and tolerability and increase in quality of life. However, to further elucidate the mechanisms of the ketogenic diet as a therapy and evaluate its application in clinical practice, more molecular studies as well as uniformly controlled clinical trials are needed.

0 comments Cited 143 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Healthy Effects of Plant Polyphenols: Molecular Mechanisms

Manuela Leri, Maria Scuto, Maria Laura Ontario … (2020)

The increasing extension in life expectancy of human beings in developed countries is accompanied by a progressively greater rate of degenerative diseases associated with lifestyle and aging, most of which are still waiting for effective, not merely symptomatic, therapies. Accordingly, at present, the recommendations aimed at reducing the prevalence of these conditions in the population are limited to a safer lifestyle including physical/mental exercise, a reduced caloric intake, and a proper diet in a convivial environment. The claimed health benefits of the Mediterranean and Asian diets have been confirmed in many clinical trials and epidemiological surveys. These diets are characterized by several features, including low meat consumption, the intake of oils instead of fats as lipid sources, moderate amounts of red wine, and significant amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables. In particular, the latter have attracted popular and scientific attention for their content, though in reduced amounts, of a number of molecules increasingly investigated for their healthy properties. Among the latter, plant polyphenols have raised remarkable interest in the scientific community; in fact, several clinical trials have confirmed that many health benefits of the Mediterranean/Asian diets can be traced back to the presence of significant amounts of these molecules, even though, in some cases, contradictory results have been reported, which highlights the need for further investigation. In light of the results of these trials, recent research has sought to provide information on the biochemical, molecular, epigenetic, and cell biology modifications by plant polyphenols in cell, organismal, animal, and human models of cancer, metabolic, and neurodegenerative pathologies, notably Alzheimer’s and Parkinson disease. The findings reported in the last decade are starting to help to decipher the complex relations between plant polyphenols and cell homeostatic systems including metabolic and redox equilibrium, proteostasis, and the inflammatory response, establishing an increasingly solid molecular basis for the healthy effects of these molecules. Taken together, the data currently available, though still incomplete, are providing a rationale for the possible use of natural polyphenols, or their molecular scaffolds, as nutraceuticals to contrast aging and to combat many associated pathologies.

0 comments Cited 131 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Immunotherapy, Inflammation and Colorectal Cancer

Charles Lichtenstern, Rachael Katie Ngu, Shabnam Shalapour … (2020)

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer type, and third highest in mortality rates among cancer-related deaths in the United States. Originating from intestinal epithelial cells in the colon and rectum, that are impacted by numerous factors including genetics, environment and chronic, lingering inflammation, CRC can be a problematic malignancy to treat when detected at advanced stages. Chemotherapeutic agents serve as the historical first line of defense in the treatment of metastatic CRC. In recent years, however, combinational treatment with targeted therapies, such as vascular endothelial growth factor, or epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors, has proven to be quite effective in patients with specific CRC subtypes. While scientific and clinical advances have uncovered promising new treatment options, the five-year survival rate for metastatic CRC is still low at about 14%. Current research into the efficacy of immunotherapy, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy (ICI) in mismatch repair deficient and microsatellite instability high (dMMR–MSI-H) CRC tumors have shown promising results, but its use in other CRC subtypes has been either unsuccessful, or not extensively explored. This Review will focus on the current status of immunotherapies, including ICI, vaccination and adoptive T cell therapy (ATC) in the treatment of CRC and its potential use, not only in dMMR–MSI-H CRC, but also in mismatch repair proficient and microsatellite instability low (pMMR-MSI-L).

0 comments Cited 105 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Ciro Isidoro

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Tradit Complement Med

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Tradit Complement Med

Title: Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine

Publisher: Elsevier

ISSN (Electronic): 2225-4110

Publication date PMC-release: 06 July 2020

Publication date Collection: May 2020

Publication date (Electronic): 06 July 2020

Volume: 10

Issue: 3

Pages: 175-179

Affiliations

[1]Università Del Piemonte Orientale, Department of Health Sciences, Novara, Italy

Author notes

[∗ ]Dipartimento di Scienze Della Salute, Università Del Piemonte Orientale “A. Avogadro”, Via P. Solaroli 17, 28100, Novara, Italy. ciro.isidoro@ 123456med.uniupo.it

Article

Publisher ID: S2225-4110(20)30817-8

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2020.06.002

PMC ID: 7340978

SO-VID: 906b4ac5-8886-4bdf-a735-4e6aae79735f

License:

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Nutraceuticals and diet in human health and disease. The special issue at a glance

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Algerian Journal of Natural Products

Most cited references 47

Ketogenic diet in the treatment of cancer – Where do we stand?

Healthy Effects of Plant Polyphenols: Molecular Mechanisms

Immunotherapy, Inflammation and Colorectal Cancer

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 279

Cited by 5

Most referenced authors 519