The present work is probably the first report on
cancer chemopreventive potential of
Triphala, a combination of fruit
powder of three different plants namely Terminalia chebula, Terminalia belerica and Emblica officinalis.
Triphala is a popular formulation of the Ayurvedic system of medicine. Our findings have shown that
Triphala in diet has significantly reduced the
benzo(a)pyrene [B(a)P] induced forestomach papillomagenesis in mice. In the short term treatment groups, the
tumor incidences were lowered to 77.77% by both doses of
Triphala mixed diet. In the case of long-term treatment the
tumor incidences were reduced to 66.66% and 62.50% respectively by 2.5% and 5%
triphala containing diet.
Tumor burden was 7.27 +/- 1.16 in the B(a)P treated control group, whereas it reduced to 3.00 +/- 0.82 (p < 0.005) by 2.5% dose and 2.33 +/- 1.03 (p < 0.001) by 5% dose of
Triphala. In long-term studies the
tumor burden was reduced to 2.17 +/- 0.75 (p < 0.001) and 2.00 +/- 0.71 (p < 0.001) by 2.5% and 5% diet of
Triphala, respectively. It was important to observe that
Triphala was more effective in reducing
tumor incidences compared to its individual constituents.
Triphala also significantly increased the
antioxidant status of animals which might have contributed to the
chemoprevention. It was inferred that the concomitant use of multiple agents seemed to have a high degree of
chemoprevention potential.