A landmark 2025 review titled, Natural anti-cancer products: insights from herbal medicine, published in Chinese Medicine, pulled together more than 1,100 scientific studies and uncovered something extraordinary: across cell, animal, and multi-omics research, 12 natural compounds repeatedly showed potent anti-cancer activity—triggering cancer cell death, blocking metastasis, cutting off tumor blood supply, disrupting tumor metabolism, and reversing drug resistance. Notably, the vast majority of this evidence comes from studies published since 2019, reflecting a rapid surge of new research in this field.

 

To build this analysis, they examined results from in vitro experiments (cancer cell lines), in vivo tumor models (mouse xenografts, orthotopic tumors, chemically induced cancers, zebrafish models), ex vivo mechanistic assays, and modern omics platforms including transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolic profiling.