Omer Kucuk, a professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory Winship Cancer Institute, conducted the first clinical trials to show the benefits of soy and lycopene supplements in prostate cancer treatment. Back in the 1980s, Kucuk was one of a handful of researchers who were exploring how specific foods may prevent cancer.

Many foods contain bioactive compounds, particularly in fruits, vegetables, and legumes that display potent anticancer activities, says Kucuk.

For example, evidence exists that specific food compounds such as soy isoflavones and curcumin can increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation therapy in patients with advanced prostate cancer.

“In our preclinical studies we have observed that taking soy isoflavones during chemotherapy and radiation for advanced prostate cancer can improve the efficacy of the treatments," says Kucuk. “The compounds sensitize the cancer cells to chemotherapy and radiation while at the same time they protect the normal tissues from side effects.”

Most nutritional compounds used for therapy or disease prevention can be taken as part of a routine diet and have little if any side effects, Kucuk says.  “People can get enough lycopene by eating tomato paste and tomato sauce, which is very rich in lycopene. So, if people ate a couple of ounces of tomato paste a day as part of a regular diet, they would eat enough to get all the benefits,” he says.

The lycopene content in tomato paste is 10 times higher in tomato paste than in raw tomatoes due to the rupturing of the cell walls when exposed to heat allowing for effective release of the molecule.

Kucuk and his colleagues are currently exploring how soy isoflavones make chemotherapy and radiation more effective. “These are pleiotropic agents. That means they affect multiple pathways in cancer cells as well as other cells,” Kucuk says. “This is actually good, because a lot of the drugs that are developed target one pathway, and they’re usually very toxic. But because nontoxic nutritional compounds work with multiple pathways they have mild side effects making them very attractive for treatment.”

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References:
1. Omer Kucuk. What fruits and vegetables have to do with cancer. Emory University.

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