Bioactives From Marine Animals: Potential Benefits for Human Reproductive Health

Abstract

Reproductive and sexual health issues, including infertility and sexual dysfunctions (SD), are common concerns affecting millions of reproductive age worldwide. Scattered literature reports that marine animals such as oysters, sea cucumbers, seahorses and spoon worms have unique bioactive compounds like saponins, steroids, seahorse-derived hydrolysates, polypeptide, oligopeptides and essential trace elements that significantly improve infertility, hormonal imbalance, SD, and impotence. In addition, these compounds have exhibited pharmacological properties against reproductive problems due to diabetes and exposure to electromagnetic fields, cyclophosphamide, or a high exercise load. This review presents the first critical assessment of the advances in understanding and applying bioactives from marine organisms to support human reproductive health. Key knowledge and technical gaps have been identified for future research to improve the lack of in-depth understanding of the mechanism and action of these bioactives in human clinical studies. There is a need to develop simple, selective, low-cost, and scalable processes to isolate and purify individual bioactive compounds for industrial applications. The optimizing culturing and farming conditions for specific bioactive compounds from targeted species are suggested for sustainable production. The review indicates a promising future of extracts and marine-derived bioactives as functional foods in preventing and managing human reproductive health issues, but mechanistic studies and further clinical trials are urgently required to evaluate their efficacy and safety.

Saponins of North Atlantic Sea Cucumber: Chemistry, Health Benefits, and Future Prospectives

“…The extraction of saponins from C. frondosa is a complex process that requires optimization to ensure the maximum yield and quality of the extract [ 16 , 91 ]. RSM and ANN are two popular optimization techniques that can be used to determine the optimal conditions for saponin extraction from C. frondosa [ 92 , 93 ], and this can be the new mechanism for the discovery of potentially new saponins that have not been reported before in scientific literature.…”

Study of Length-Weight Relationship and Condition Factor of Sandfish Sea Cucumber (Holothuria scabra)

“…Additionally, the fatty acid profile of Holothuria scabra is dominated by Omega-6 and Omega-9 fatty acids, which are essential for maintaining good cardiovascular health and reducing inflammation in the body. Several studies have identified additional benefits of sandfish, including their use as a natural source of aphrodisiacs, as potential anti-aging agents in postmenopausal women, as potential drugs that can improve men's reproductive quality (Riani et al 2017;Hoang et al 2022). As a source of natural antioxidants, fucoidan, and triperten glycosides, also have antibacterial, antifungal, and antitumor properties (Hossain et al 2022).…”