Alkylating agents and antimetabolites remain prominent in a wide variety of cancer chemotherapy protocols on the basis of more selective effects on the faster than normal mitotic cycles of malignant cells. Among new platinum‐containing anticancer molecules, the lead compound cisplatin (Cis‐platinum (II) diammine dichloride) has been known to possess beneficial anticancer properties in terms of specific interaction of cisplatin and DNA strands. Cisplatin (Rosenberg et al. 1969) has been encouraged for treatment of head and neck, bladder, and cervical cancers (Loehrer & Einhorn 1984), as well as breast cancer (Smith & Talbot 1992). Although the prevalent incidence of lung, gastric, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers place them in top ranks of the most common cancers in the civilized countries, many of these advanced cancers are unresponsive to chemotherapy.

Platinum‐based drugs would be a potent choice in these situations, but they frequently cause substantial side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, nephropathy and hypomagnesaemia due to damage of renal tubules (Lajer & Daugaard 1999). Furthermore, in addition to hearing loss and peripheral neuropathy, myelosuppression is one of the most devastating suppressive side‐effects (Prestayko et al. 1979) leading to immunocompromised states. Therefore, any reduction of the side effects of cisplatin would be valuable. Thus, we explored the effect of modified rice bran (also known as Lentin Plus 1000) on protection of weight loss of mice under tolerable maximal doses of cisplatin. Others have briefly commented on the antistress and antifatigue effects of fermented rice bran (Kim et al. 2001) or some beneficial effect of modified rice bran on some adverse actions of anticancer drugs in rats (Jacoby et al. 2000).