Many natural products have been used in
preventing or treating different diseases.
However, is it possible to prevent or even treat cancer by natural
products? The short answer may be “Yes” but
the more practical answer is “Depending on many factors, certain natural
products might be helpful in cancer treatment.”
Nevertheless, please keep in mind that before any natural product can be
called a drug, it must first be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
As a background of this section, let’s clarify
some important points. First, there is
not a single approved drug that works on all types of cancer, not to mention a
natural product. The best one can say is
that some natural products might be effective in the prevention or treatment of
some cancer under certain conditions. As
described before, cancer is a group of complicated diseases. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the
same drug will work on the same cancer for all patients. This is because human being is a complex
organism and the same cancer in different patients could be somewhat different
and the treatment may have to be modified accordingly.
Secondly, every natural product contains
multiple ingredients; some are active and most are inactive. Depending on the manufactures of the natural
products, the ingredients could be significantly different. This is different from the drugs approved by
the FDA in that the active ingredient(s) are exactly the same, no matter which
companies make the drug products.
Therefore, it is important to distinguish the differences between FDA
approved drugs and natural products.
Keep in mind, an active ingredient in certain natural product, as a pure
pharmaceutical active ingredient (API), can be developed to become a new
drug. At that time, it will be called a
“new drug” and not referred to as a natural product.
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