With emerging trends in the incidence of
cancer of various organ sites, additional approaches are needed to control human
malignancies. Intervention or prevention of
cancer by dietary constituents, a strategy defined as
chemoprevention, holds great promise in our conquest to control
cancer, because it can be implemented on a broader population base with less economic burden. Consistent with this, several epidemiological studies have shown that populations that consume diets rich in fruits and vegetables have an overall lower
cancer incidence. Based on these encouraging observations, research efforts from across the globe have focused on identifying, characterizing, and providing scientific basis to the efficacy of various
phytonutrients in an effort to develop effective strategy to control various human
malignancies.
Cancer induction, growth, and progression are multi-step events and numerous studies have demonstrated that various dietary agents interfere with these stages of
cancer, thus blocking
malignancy. Fruits and vegetables represent untapped reservoir of various nutritive and nonnutritive
phytochemicals with potential
cancer chemopreventive activity. Grapes and grape-based products are one such class of dietary products that have shown
cancer chemopreventive potential and are also known to improve overall human health. This review focuses on recent advancements in
cancer chemopreventive and anticancer efficacy of
grape seed extract and other grape-based products. Overall, completed studies from various scientific groups conclude that both grapes and grape-based products are excellent sources of various
anticancer agents and their regular consumption should thus be beneficial to the general population.