Haroon Khan
Thomas Efferth
Silvia Tejada- 1Department of Pharmacy, Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, Pakistan
- 2Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
- 3Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Biology, University of Balearic Islands, and IdISBa and CIBEROBN, Palma, Spain
Editorial on the Research Topic
Phytonutrients in the treatment of cancer: Mechanistic insights and therapeutic prospects
Cancer is probably one of the leading causes of death worldwide, irrespective of age, gender, and locality. Recent statistic from 183 countries revealed that cancer represents the first or second cause of mortality in 112 countries of the world and the third or fourth cause in another 23 countries. Indeed, it is a huge economic burden affecting both individuals and health care systems (1). No doubt, cancer treatment is always a great challenge and therapeutic options are limited (2). The therapeutic approaches include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and more recently immunotherapy depending upon the individual conditions with large variations in treatment success from case to case.
From a clinical perspective, many chemotherapeutic agents are non-sufficient in terms of sensitivity, efficacy, and safety and therefore shaken the confidence of prescribers. Natural products have served as the foundation for numerous therapeutic agents over the years, as they are more acceptable due to their organic nature, fair trade, and sustainably produced. Natural products consumption has significantly increased in recent years, resulting in the emergence of natural brands and specialty stores that focus solely on these products (3). Natural products have distinct characteristics that distinguish them from conventional synthetic molecules, providing both advantages and challenges for the drug discovery process. An increased awareness of ingredients in various products, accompanied by firm opinions about which ingredients or characteristics may or may not harm consumers, is driving these desires. It has been discussed that several components in natural products could have a significant anticancer potential that must be scientifically proven before new chemotherapeutics can be developed (4, 5). Quite a large number of newly isolated compounds are under preclinical and clinical investigation. In this context, the development of new techniques has greatly facilitated drug discovery and development from natural agents for cancer treatment.
In this Research Topic, we focus on secondary metabolites from natural food sources with strong effects as anticancer agents in both preclinical and clinical phases. Evidence-based studies on natural products with detailed mechanistic analyses are presented that could be candidates of clinical studies.
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Acknowledgments
HK is thankful to the HEC for financial support under project No: (Ref No. 20-16097/NRPU/R&D/HEC/2021 2021). ST was supported by Institute of Health Carlos III through the Fondo de Investigación para la Salud (CIBEROBN CB12/03/30038).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
References
1. Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel RL, Laversanne M, Soerjomataram I, Jemal A, et al. Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. Cancer J Clin. (2021) 71:209–49. doi: 10.3322/caac.21660
2. Bray F, Laversanne M, Weiderpass E, Soerjomataram I. The ever-increasing importance of cancer as a leading cause of premature death worldwide. Cancer. (2021) 127:3029–30. doi: 10.1002/cncr.33587
3. Dominick S, Fullerton C, Widmar NJO, Wang H. Consumer associations with the “All Natural” food label. J Food Prod Market. (2018) 24:249–62. doi: 10.1080/10454446.2017.1285262
4. Cragg GM, Newman DJ. Plants as a source of anti-cancer agents. J Ethnopharmacol. (2005) 100:72–9. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2005.05.011
Keywords: phytonutrients, cancers, preclinical studies, mechanistic insights, clinical status, drug discovery
Citation: Khan H, Efferth T and Tejada S (2023) Editorial: Phytonutrients in the treatment of cancer: Mechanistic insights and therapeutic prospects. Front. Nutr. 10:1134716. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1134716
Received: 30 December 2022; Accepted: 17 February 2023;
Published: 07 March 2023.
Edited by:
Maurizio Muscaritoli, Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyReviewed by:
Ines Banjari, University of Osijek, CroatiaCopyright © 2023 Khan, Efferth and Tejada. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Haroon Khan, haroonkhan@awkum.edu.pk; hkdr2006@gmail.com