Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Use of Lipids

Abstract

Fats and oils in general are considered reliable ingredients, excipients or carriers in many pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations. More recently, biological and functional properties as well as health benefits of many fatty acids and lipid phytochemicals have been studied for their potential applications in health products and disease prevention. This has resulted in the development of new products and applications of these bioactives into more specialized pharmaceutical and cosmetic products such as coadjuvants, skin emolliency agents, and transdermal carriers. New, more specifically targeted applications of lipids in pharma and cosmeceutical fields also include the manufacture of lipid vesicles with entrapped bioactive elements able to partition into the skin layers and deliver drugs and bioactive cosmetics transdermally. Lipids used in pharmaceutical and cosmetics require higher standards of purity and have to fulfill more stringent regulatory specifications. Therefore it is necessary to conduct additional processing steps to remove contaminants and other impurities to trace or non‐detectable levels. In order to make lipids more functional and recover lipid biological actives new processing techniques have to be applied such as molecular distillation, supercritical extraction, and fractionation techniques.