Arthropods in Cosmetics, Pharmaceuticals and Medicine: A Review

Abstract

Apart from food, other important needs in the care of human bodies are cosmetics and drugs. For long the latter two are obtained from chemical formulations and phytochemicals (commonly used in Ethnomedicine), use of bioactive compounds from insects (i.e. “ento medicine” and “ento cosmetics”) is a recent development in research, even though the bioactive compounds were discovered long ago. This chapter is a review on a number of substances extracted from various insect species that are useful in cosmetics, pharmaceutical industries as well as those that form part of prescription for healing in orthodox and traditional medicine. The review is based on information from scientific reports, Google, e-library, textbooks. A number of substances were found to have been incorporated into cosmetic and pharmaceutical products and as part of prescriptions for healing in orthodox medicine, many others at elementary stages of investigation, purification and development. The findings showed that insects have a lot of bioactive substances that need to be harnessed for the good man.

Bioinformatic analysis of lucifensin potential as a nutraceutical source for livestock

“…Moreover, some research that investigated lucifensin obtained from the Lucilia sp. 's larvae concluded that this compound is potential as an antibacterial for open wound treatment [10,11], [20,21]. However, the research on activity and effectiveness of lucifensin of Lucilia sp.…”

Exploring the anticancer activity of five Hyalomma species (Acari: Ixodidae) salivary gland extracts on human colorectal cancer cell line HT-29

“…These compounds as a source of alternative medicine can be found in plants and other living organisms. Recent advances in the development of arthropods' natural products as potential novel medicines indicate that arthropods and their compounds are an excellent choice for achieving this goal (Arokiyaraj et al, 2022;Cardoso et al, 2020;Dioguardi et al, 2020;Ebenebe et al, 2021;Hemmati & Tabein, 2022;Lozano-Trujillo et al, 2021;Saadoun et al, 2022). Among arthropods, ticks have received attention in biomedicine and treating complicated diseases (Bartíková et al, 2020;Nascimento et al, 2019;Sousa et al, 2018).…”