Possible adjuvant cancer therapy by two prebiotics--inulin or oligofructose.

Dietary treatment with inulin or oligofructose incorporated in the basal diet for experimental animals: (I) reduced the incidence of mammary tumors induced in Sprague-Dawley rats by methylnitrosourea; (II) inhibited the growth of transplantable malignant tumors in mice; (III) decreased the incidence of lung metastases of a malignant tumor implanted intramuscularily in mice. (IV) Moroever, besides such cancer risk reduction effects, dietary treatment with inulin or oligofructose significantly potentiated the effects of subtherapeutic doses of six cytotoxic drugs commonly utilized in human cancer treatment. (V) The same prebiotics potentiated the effects of radiotherapy on solid form of TLT tumors to a statistically very high level. Such dietary treatment, with the inulin or oligofructose potentiating the effects of cancer therapy, might be introduced into classic protocols of human cancer treatment as a new, non-toxic and easily applicable adjuvant cancer therapy without any additional risk to patients.