Abstract
The aim of this paper is to review the multiplicity of the current uses of marine macroalgae. Seaweeds are already used in many products and for different purposes, from food products to medicine. They are a natural resource that can provide a number of compounds with beneficial bioactivities like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging effects, among others. Despite studies directed in prospecting for their properties and the commodities already marketed, they could, surely, be even more researched and sustainably explored.
Highlights
MARE (Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre), Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Department of Biology and CESAM, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
There are natural and healthier substitutes of pasta or bacon (i.e., Himanthalia elongata, as spaghetti, and Palmaria palmata, as sea bacon, both from Seamore food company), the well-known nori sheets to prepare sushi rolls or crispy thin snacks, and many other recipes such as wraps with Undaria pinnatifida and H. elongata, or the laverbread, a paste prepared with boiled nori [15,18] and in desserts like in innovative Spanish nougats with crushed nori algae [21])
Seaweed and seaweed-derived products have been widely used in agriculture to improve crop production systems due to the existence of a number of plant growth-stimulating compounds [34,35,36]
Summary
The marine environment is home for many diverse organisms such as algae, molluscs, sponges, corals, tunicates. Seaweeds are primary producers, the base of the marine food chain, sustaining several benthic animal communities [7] They compete for light, nutrients, and space, in addition to the need of carbon dioxide and water to develop. Drugs 2019, 17, x FOR PEER REVIEW effectiveBecause mechanisms biotic threats, likehave bacteria, virus, fungal infections They to aresurvive sessile many organisms, seaweeds evolved toor live in variable, Becauseand they are sessile organisms, seaweeds have evolved to live in variable, extreme, and hostile abiotic extreme, hostile abiotic environmental and stress conditions, like temperature changes, salinity, environmental and stressor conditions, like temperature changes, salinity, pollutants, or UV environmental pollutants, UV radiation exposure.
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