Tumor cells can escape from the normal apoptosis process and enhance the ability of proli-feration and migration via an abnormal glucose metabolism. This abnormal glucose metabolism is named the Warburg effect, which plays a key role in the incidence of tumor. The Warburg effect is that, under aerobic condition, attenuating aerobic respiration of tumor cells via a series of molecular mechanisms, and exhibiting higher glycolysis metabolism and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, and meanwhile, creating the micro-environment that suitable for tumor cell survival, inducing proliferation advantages for tumor cells. In addition, the Warburg effect-induced regional hypoxia reduces monitoring effect and lethality of T-lymphocytes, and thus induces immune escape of tumor cells. By inhibiting related pathways of Warburg effect, some drugs such as 2-deoxy-D-glucose and dichloroacetic acid have effective ability to inhibit Warburg effect-caused proliferation advantages and immune escape of tumor cells, and thus inhibit tumor cells growth and promote tumor cells death. Moreover, health diet also effectively inhibits the Warburg effect. However, there are also some pro-blems to be solved. As the development of researches on the Warburg effect, the effect of various antitumor drugs will be revalued, and these will provide new theoretical basis and research direction for tumor prevention and therapy.

Glycolysis; Neoplasms; Universal precautions; Therapy; Warburg effect; Molecular mechanism