As cancer incidence is projected to increase for decades there is a need for effective preventive strategies. Fortunately,
evidence continues to mount that altering dietary habits is an effective and cost-efficient approach for reducing cancer risk
and for modifying the biological behavior of tumors. Predictive, validated and sensitive biomarkers, including those that
reliably evaluate "intake" or exposure to a specific food or bioactive component, that assess one or more specific biological
"effects" that are linked to cancer, and that effectively predict individual "susceptibility" as a function of nutrient_nutrient
interactions and genetics, are fundamental to evaluating who will benefit most from dietary interventions. These biomarkers
must be readily accessible, easily and reliably assayed, and predictive of a key process(es) involved in cancer. The response
to a food is determined not only by the effective concentration of the bioactive food component(s) reaching the target tissue,
but also by the amount of the target requiring modification. Thus, this threshold response to foods and their components will
vary from individual to individual. The key to understanding a personalized response is a greater knowledge of nutrigenomics,
proteomics and metabolomics. |
