As described above, the first and landmark study regarding the
chemopreventive effects of resveratrol was done by Jang et al.
In this study, resveratrol was found to act as an antioxidant and
antimutagen, induce phase II drug-metabolizing enzymes (antiinitiation
activity),mediate anti-inflammatory effects, inhibit
cyclooxygenase and hydroperoxidase functions (antipromotion
activity), and induce human promyelocytic leukemia cell
differentiation (antiprogression activity). In addition, resveratrol
also inhibited the development of preneoplastic lesions in carcinogen-treated
mouse mammary glands in culture and tumorigenesis
in a chemically induced skin carcinogenesis mouse model. Since the appearance of this study in the year 1997, evidence accumulated from a plethora of studies, both in vitro and in vivo,
have suggested that resveratrol could be developed as a strong
chemopreventive and/or therapeutic agent for the management
of cancer