Synbiotics: Promising Approach for the Therapeutic Management of Cancer

Cancer represents a wide range of diseases that could begin in any parts of the body when cells grow abnormally and uncontrollably exceeding their normal boundaries. Cancer is a major health concern as statistics have shown that it is the second leading cause of death around the world. Treating cancer is a highly challenging and complex process. In addition to conventional therapeutic approaches such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery, advances in oncology research over the recent years have led to the development of modern therapeutic approaches including stem cell therapy, sonodynamic therapy, ablation therapy, and chemodynamic therapy. Nonetheless, due to its increasing prevalence and growing burden on individuals, communities, and global health systems, a constant search for novel and efficient therapeutics is necessary to improve the overall survival and well-being of the affected population, as well as to alleviate critical adverse effects associated with the use of anticancer therapeutics. For this instance, the human gut microbiota has a strong influence on human homeostasis in which numerous studies have proven that maintaining a healthy gut could prevent diseases while ameliorating various pathological conditions. As the gut microbiota evolves throughout the entire life of the host as a direct consequence of lifestyle habits of an individual, synbiotics are one of the best evidenced means of manipulating the gut microbiota for therapeutic benefits. Generally, synbiotic products contain one or more combinations of probiotics and prebiotics which could confer health benefit on the host by improving the survival of live microbials in the gastrointestinal tract through selective growth induction, as well as activation of metabolism of one or more health-promoting bacteria, thereby restoring normal gut bacterial flora. In this chapter, we discuss some of the possible anticancer properties of synbiotics and highlight several studies performed in this field of research, which could potentially justify the utilization of synbiotics in cancer prevention and therapy.