Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Use of Lipids

Lipid nutritional supplements have been in use before the term nutraceutical was coined. Products such as fish oils, shark cartilage, shark liver oil, and vitamins have been in the market since the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of the health claims of these products lacked strict scientific documentation in the past, and their curative properties were mostly anecdotal. However, today there is a better understanding of the biological properties of lipids and their application has extended to combined pharmaceutical and cosmetic fields such as disease prevention and treatment, excipients and coadjuvants, trans-dermal carriers, and skin emolliency agents. This has led to the development of bioactive cosmetic and pharmaceutical products whose name has recently been coined as cosmeceuticals. Keywords: structured lipids; cosmeceuticals; nutraceutical; omega-3 fats; fat-soluble vitamins; sterols; steroids; phospholipids; trans-dermal carriers