Drug Delivery Systems Utilizing Essential Oils and Their Compounds—A Promising Approach to Fight Pathogens
Source abstract
Abstract
Essential oils (EOs) and their compounds are becoming a growing interest in medical sciences. Despite their potential as antimicrobial, anxiolytic, cytotoxic, and immunosuppressive drugs, their chemical characteristics make them difficult to use in direct treatment. This article intends to summarize the current body of knowledge regarding drug delivery systems that can overcome obstacles, such as low water solubility, volatility, oxidation potential, photodegradation, and thermal instability of EO compounds. Various materials like zeolites, alginate, chitosan, cellulose nanomaterials, zein, poly (D,L-lactic-co-glycolic) acid, liposomes, nanoemulsions, and their modifications can help to mitigate these problems, but their utilization in medical settings is still lacking. The biggest issue in the utilization of natural compounds seems to be the very low number of clinical trials, which seriously impedes their usage despite favorable outcomes in/of in vitro experiments.
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Research context
OpenAlex topics: Essential Oils and Antimicrobial Activity
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Department of Diagnostic Immunology, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, 70-111 Szczecin, Poland
Department of Genetics and Pathology, International Hereditary Cancer Center, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, 71-252 Szczecin, Poland
Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Microbiological Diagnostic, Medical University of Lodz, 90-151 Lodz, Poland
References (100+)
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