Cancer chemoprevention is based on a number of experimental and epidemiological evidence that our environment could contain not only carcinogenic compounds but also natural or synthetic substances able to inhibit or reverse the process of carcinogenesis. More than 600 potential chemopreventives have been identified and approximately 30 of them have been or are being tested in humans. These include naturally occurring substances present in human foods and synthetic chemicals. In this review natural products possessing chemopreventive potential are introduced with experimental evidence of their mechanisms of action, although other natural chemopreventives are under investigation with regard to their spectra of activity and their possible relevance to prophylaxis of human cancer.

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