Anticancer Activity of Herbal Medicine: Mechanism of Action

Cancer is an alarming disease and quite lethal in nature in developed and developing nations. Many new therapeutic agents and therapies are available in the market but have some severe side effects on human beings’ organs. These therapeutic agents are quite costly and not easily available in some of the developing nations. Various scientific reports have shown that chemoprevention through naturally derived herbal and dietary phytochemicals is an innovative therapeutic tool against different cancer types. These herbal phytochemicals have shown their potential anticancer activity in both in vitro and in vivo studies. Further, many of them have been successfully proved for their chemopreventive property by inducing apoptosis equivalent to certain other chemical drugs without causing any side effects. The combinational role of herbal and dietary phytochemicals has proved to be very effective against cancer prevention. The present chapter summarised the effectiveness of herbal and dietary phytochemicals for chemoprevention and also highlighted their combinational role on various kinds of cancer.