Targeting excessive angiogenesis with functional foods and nutraceuticals

Interest in angiogenesis as a target for degenerative diseases prevention and/or therapy has resulted from the gradual recognition that angiogenesis is a hallmark of-and pivotal for the spread of-almost all neoplastic and non-neoplastic degenerative diseases including cancer, diabetes, chronic inflammation, arthritis, age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimers, psoriasis, restenosis, and many more. Angiogenesis is a dynamic, complex, multistep enzymatic process which involves almost all classes of enzymes and includes positive and negative regulators. Since angiogenesis is a process that is generally down regulated in healthy individuals, targeting of angiogenesis with safe anti-angiogenic compounds, that are selective against newly formed vessels while sparing existing ones, may not lead to side effects even after prolonged exposure. Many inhibitors of angiogenesis are being isolated from functional foods. The rationale of investigating functional foods as anti-angiogenic compounds for degenerative disease prevention is that data from cell cultures and animal models show that these compounds can be safe, effective, reversible inhibitors, ingested appropriately over a life span without severe toxicity, amenable to clinical trials, and possibly become low cost budget prescription. This review demonstrates that enzyme inhibition is the major molecular basis of antiangiogenic functional foods and highlights their potentials and challenges. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.