There has been increasing interest lately in understanding how natural dietary antioxidants affect chemoprevention, and recently, there has been a merging of information about antioxidants, endogenous and exogenous reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS), and inflammation. RONS normally serve the cells as second messengers to regulate many of the intracellular signaling cascades that govern multiple cellular activities. However, when the amount of RONS exceeds the cell's ability to metabolize/eliminate them, the cell becomes stressed and acquires genetic and epigenetic aberrations and dysregulated intracellular signaling cascades. In addition, there has been a better understanding of the role of tissue inflammation in the carcinogenesis process. Herein we integrate these fields to explain where RONS arise and how natural dietary antioxidants are principally working through refurbishing pathways that use RONS as second messengers.
Keywords: AKT; COX-2; Chemoprevention; Colon cancer; Colorectal cancer; Epigenome; Free radicals; Fusobacterium nucleatum bacteria; Gene-diet interaction; H2O2; Inflammation; K-ras; Macrophages; NADPH oxidases; NF-κB; NOS2; Neutrophils; Nrf2; PTEN; RONS; WNT; miRNA.