Chinese herbal medicine exhibits anticancer properties via eight cancer hallmarks

Abstract

Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is the key component of health care in China for the past 5,000 years. It has extensively influenced the healthcare industry not only in China but also in neighboring countries. The use of CHM to treat human diseases, especially cancer, is keep growing. Furthermore, millions of money were invested to study the role of CHM in cancer cure. In the last decade, researchers together with CHM practitioners tried to bridge the gap to understand each other's perspective to find the effectiveness of CHM in treating cancer. The mechanism of CHM in treating cancer is best understood via the theory of cancer hallmark proposed by Hanahan and Weinberg, which describes functional, molecular, and biological traits of specific cancer. The eight hallmarks of cancer are inhibiting proliferative signaling, inducing growth suppressors, inducing cell death, inhibiting replicative immortality, antiangiogenesis, inhibition of invasion and metastasis, energy metabolism, and immune destructive. The information is extracted from electronic resources (PubMed, Wiley, Springer, and ScienceDirect). This article reviews the antitumor activity of CHM against various cancers through each of the eight cancer hallmarks. It is hoped that this article would provide essential knowledge in cancer treatment by CHM.