Abstract
Essential oils are being studied for more than 60 years, but a growing interest has emerged in the recent decades due to a desire for a rediscovery of natural remedies. Essential oils are known for millennia and, already in prehistoric times, they were used for medicinal and ritual purposes due to their therapeutic properties. Using a variety of methods refined over the centuries, essential oils are extracted from plant raw materials: the choice of the extraction method is decisive, since it determines the type, quantity, and stereochemical structure of the essential oil molecules. To these components belong all properties that make essential oils so interesting for pharmaceutical uses; the most investigated ones are antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, wound-healing, and anxiolytic activities. However, the main limitations to their use are their hydrophobicity, instability, high volatility, and risk of toxicity. A successful strategy to overcome these limitations is the encapsulation within delivery systems, which enable the increase of essential oils bioavailability and improve their chemical stability, while reducing their volatility and toxicity. Among all the suitable platforms, our review focused on the lipid-based ones, in particular micro- and nanoemulsions, liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, and nanostructured lipid carriers.
Highlights
Laboratory of Drug Delivery Technology, Department of Drug and Health Sciences, University of Catania, Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95125 Catania, Italy; Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, CEB—Centre of Biological Engineering, Campus de Gualtar, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
According to the definition given by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the term EO is related to a “product obtained from vegetable raw material, either by distillation with water or steam, or from the epicarp of citrus fruits by a mechanical process or by dry distillation.”
The selected strains belonged to different bacterial species or genera, and it emerged that none of them muted becoming resistant: these findings suggested that the broad activity of Origanum vulgare EO could be achieved through the interaction with multiple cellular targets, minimizing the possible occurrence of mutant-resistant strains
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. 4000 B.C.) they were extracted from plants by simple squeezing and this was the turning point that gave rise to the sedentary lifestyle This led to the construction of the first sacred monuments where EOs were used in rituals. Ayurveda is a traditional book that describes the use, both medical and religious, of over 700 different types of plants, and it is still the basis of the Indian healthcare [1]. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, documented the medicinal importance of over 300 plants [3] He strongly believed in the medical benefits of fumigation with aromatic oils in the treatment of the plague; he was convinced that the topical use of aromatic preparations could produce systemic effects. Exactement” was published, in which Daniel Pénoël and Pierre Franchomme reported the medical properties of more than 270 EOs, and this was the starting point for many studies
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