The anticancer activity of strawberry

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide and the failure of chemo- and radiotherapy is most responsible for this, due to drug resistance or adverse reactions. For this reason, investigating the antitumour effect of natural compounds alone or in combination with common chemotherapy drugs is getting really interesting. During carcinogenesis, the neoplastic formation process is attributable to different events, many of which are related to phenomena of chronic inflammation, oxidative stress and thus to damages to biological macromolecules, especially nucleic acids. Therefore, studying the effect of some food matrices that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties is a goal for many researchers. Among the different fruits, strawberry has several bioactive phenolic compounds, especially flavonoids, anthocyanins and ellagitannins, with proven biological activities; their presence has led many researches to investigate its antitumour activity in different types of cancer, both in in vitro and in vivo models. The purpose of this work is therefore to show the latest finding about this topic.