Abstract: The US Department of Agriculture\'s MyPyramid guidelines introduced a near doubling of the dietary recommendations for vegetables including dry beans, an important food staple in many traditional diets can improve diet quality. Populations with high legume (peas, beans, lentils) consumption have a low risk of cancer and chronic degenerative diseases. Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are known as a rich reliable source of non-digested compounds like fiber, phenolics, peptides and phytochemicals associated with health benefits. Emerging evidence indicates that common bean consumption is associated with reduced cancer risk in human populations, inhibiting carcinogenesis in animal models and inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in cell cultures. Fiber may reduce the risk of premature death from all causes, while the whole non-digestible fraction from common beans has demonstrated anti- proliferative and apoptosis induction on in vitro and in vivo colon cancer. The mechanisms responsible for this apparently protective role may include gene-nutrient interactions and modulation of proteinsexpression. This review investigates the health potential of beans on tumor inhibition, examining their bioactivity, highlighting studies involving functional compounds, mainly non-digestible fraction, that modulate genes and proteins, helping to understand its chemopreventive role against the development of chronic diseases.