High-fat Diet-associated Digestive Cancers: Mechanisms, Natural Product-based Therapies, and Drug Development

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world, and a high-fat diet is associated with the development of digestive cancers. Traditional Chinese medicine is a treasure trove of natural products (NPs) with anticancer effects.

We provide a comprehensive overview of NPs that can target high-fat diet-associated digestive cancers (HFDDC) and to investigate their mechanisms of action for drug discovery.

A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the EU Clinical Trials Register, using keywords including NPs, high-fat diet, digestive cancers, and specific NP names.

NPs exert multi-targeting effects against HFDDC. This study systematically investigated their multi-targeting therapeutic mechanisms. Mechanistically, NPs (e.g., curcumin and berberine) can inhibit the transformation from inflammation to cancer by targeting STAT3 and WNT pathways. Several NPs (e.g., glycyrrhizic acid and mulberry leaf extract) activate SREBP and PKCα/Rac1 pathways regulating lipid metabolism to alleviate the accumulation of abnormal lipids in the cell, and reduce the growth of cancer cell. By modulating NRF2 and COX-2 pathways, rosmarinic acid and lycopene exert anti-oxidative stress. NPs such as salicylic acid and genkwanin consolidate the body's immune surveillance defense, and restore the human immunity and prevent the escape of cancer cells. Moreover, garo-oligosaccharides and prebiotics combat HFDDC through the restoration of the gut flora homeostasis. Existing clinical trials have shown that several NPs (e.g., berberine, curcumin, lycopene and fish oil) exert both anticancer and lipid-modulating effects.

These findings demonstrate the great potential of NPs in preventing and treating HFDDC through multi-target mechanisms, laying the foundation for their clinical translation.