ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, Sugimura and colleagues isolated potent mutagens from cooked meat and fish, thereby stimulating a major international effort on the study of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and the search for protective compounds [1-3]. Since then, more than 200 reports have been published on dietary compounds that protect against HCA-induced mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. Schwab et al. [2] noted that some 600 compounds and complex mixtures that attenuate the mutagenicity of HCAs have been identified, including fatty acids, amino acids, pigments, flavorings, biogenic amines, vitamins, dietary fiber, and dietary phytochemicals. Dashwood [4] also compiled a list of more than 150 natural or synthetic phytochemicals, micronutrients, and antioxidants able to modulate HCA-induced mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. These include curcumin [5], resveratrol [6], isoflavones [7-9], soy saponins [10], carotenoids [11, 12], organosulfur compounds [9, 13-15], oltipraz [9, 16, 17], glucosinolate breakdown products, including isothiocyanates (ITCs) [3, 9, 18-20] and various polyphenols [9, 21-26].
