Nutraceuticals and "repurposed" drugs of phytochemical origin in prevention and interception of chronic degenerative disease and cancer.

Chronic, degenerative diseases are often characterized by inflammation and aberrant angiogenesis. For many of these pathologies, including rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, cancer, diabetes, and obesity, current therapies have limited efficacy, thus the validation of novel (chemo)preventive and interceptive approaches, of new or repurposed agents, alone or in combination with registered drugs, are urgently required. Phytochemicals (triterpenoids, flavonoids, retinoids) and their derivatives, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (aspirin) as well as biguanides (metformin and phenformin) originally developed from phytochemical backbones, are multi-target agents showing anti-angiogenic and anti-anti-inflammatory proprieties. Some of them target AMPK and metabolic pathways such as the mTOR axis. Here, we summarized and discussed the beneficial effects of these compounds in conferring protection and supporting therapy, suggesting that these molecules could be employed for combinatorial chemoprevention, interception approaches or chemoprevention/therapy regimens for cancer and other chronic complex diseases.