ABSTRACT
Q March 13, 1998, the Los Angeles Times had a front page news story showing that the incidence of all cancers declined an average of 0.7% a year since 1993 and that cancer death rates declined an average of 0.5% a year from 1990 to 1995 . According to the report, health officials attributed these declines to early diagnosis, smoking cessation, and better medical treatment. While this may be part of the story about progress in modern medicine, it is important to point out that chemoprevention and adjuvant nutrition in cancer treatment may have contributed to the resultant reduced cancer incidence and increased cure rates in the general population and defined highrisk groups (Quillin and Williams, 1993; Quillin and Quillin, 1994; Diamond et al., 1997). Many compounds isolated from plants have been shown to have chemopreventive effects (Gao and Lien, 1991; Ren and Lien, 1997). More and more people all over the world are realizing the necessity of proper nutrition, exercise and rest, dietary supplementation of vitamins and chemopreventive agents, and the avoidance of carcinogenic agents, in reducing the risk of cancer.
