Diet and cancer prevention: evidence-based medicine to genomic medicine.

The practice of medicine, including health promotion and disease prevention, is on the verge of being revolutionized once again as the scientific and medical community transitions from evidence-based medicine to genomic medicine. Evidence-based medicine entails the systematic approach of formulating a question, developing literature search strategies, and evaluating and applying evidence to establish clinical practice guidelines. In 1982, when the National Research Council published the first comprehensive review of diet and cancer, the literature was primarily based on epidemiological studies, comparing dietary patterns between countries of low and high incidence for particular cancers.

Defining the state of knowledge with respect to food, nutrition, physical activity, and the prevention of cancer.

The 1997 World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) report, Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a global perspective, has become the most authoritative statement on the topic. WCRF International has begun the process of producing its second global report on food, nutrition, physical activity, and the prevention of cancer. The process is in three stages.

Diet, nutrition, and cancer prevention: the postgenomic era.

The genomic era of human nutrition is upon us: the human genome and several plant genomes have been characterized, and genetically modified foods are now abundantly available in the marketplace. The link between diet and cancer is well established, and new genomic technologies have made possible the investigation of nutritional modulation of the carcinogenesis pathway with nutrients, micronutrients, and phytochemicals. Current study of nutrient-modulated carcinogenesis involves exploring the effect of nutrients on DNA damage and repair mechanisms; DNA methylation, which influences gene expression and cellular phenotypes; antioxidant rearranging and oxidative stress; target receptors and signal transduction pathways; cell cycle controls and check points; apoptosis; and antiangiogenic processes.