Prescription: Issue No. 11 (November 2023)

Colorectal cancer (CRC), which is characterised by abnormal growth of normal cells in the colon lining or rectum, is currently ranked second in terms of mortality rate, accounting for approximately 881,000 deaths of all cancer patients worldwide with over 1.8 million new cases in 2018 (Baidoun et al., 2021). The majority of CRC cases are sporadic (Yamagishi et al., 2016). Sporadic CRC, being intrinsically non-hereditary, is associated with multi-factors such as high intake of red meat, being overweight and the lack of fibres in diet (Baena & Salinas, 2015; Hamza et al., 2017; Vipperla & O'Keefe, 2016). The actual cause of CRC hitherto remains poorly understood. Nevertheless, imbalanced gut microbiota and intestinal metabolome are increasingly linked to CRC (Ciernikova et al., 2015; Drewes et al., 2016). In fact, there is now growing evidence indicating that restoration of gut microbiota could potentially prevent CRC (Arkan, 2017; Lin et al., 2018; Seidel et al., 2017). Also, the limitations of conventional chemotherapy and targeted therapy raise the need for preventive strategies against CRC through diet modifications (Arkan, 2017).