Anticancer and cancer preventive compounds from edible marine organisms.

A direct impact of food on health, which demonstrates that dietary habit is one of the most important determinants of chronic diseases such as cancers, has led to an increased interest of the consumers toward natural bioactive compounds as functional ingredients or nutraceuticals. Epidemiological studies revealed that the populations of many Asian countries with high consumption of fish and seafood have low prevalence of particular type of cancers such as lung, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. This observation has led to extensive investigations of the benefits of compounds present in edible marine organisms such as fish, marine invertebrates (mollusks, echinoderms) and marine algae as cancer chemopreventive agents. Interestingly, many of these marine organisms not only constitute as seafood delicacy but also as ingredients used in folk medicine of some East and Southeast Asian countries. The results of the investigations on extracts and compounds from fish (cods, anchovy, eel and also fish protein hydrolysates), mollusks (mussel, oyster, clams and abalone), as well as from sea cucumbers on the in vivo/in vitro anticancer/antitumor activities can, in part, support the health benefits of these edible marine organisms.