Pharmaceutical and Nutraceutical Potential of Seaweed Sustainable Exploitation

Abstract

Seaweeds are autotrophic marine organisms able to produce multiple molecules, being primary and secondary metabolites. In recent years, several studies investigated the bioactivities of seaweed-derived molecules. Many proprieties are being described, for example, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antitumoral, antidiabetic, and antiobesity, in order to potentially apply in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical sectors. In the last decades, consumer’s demand has increased so much that it has exceeded the capacity of the market supply based on wild nature reserves, generating a need to cultivate the main species to be consumed. To make this a sustainable process, and avoid the limitation of the wild stocks, it is needed to resort to aquaculture systems. Since ancient times, there has been harvesting and cultivation of algae, but due to the increase in research and the recognition of the properties of its compounds, aquaculture has been growing quickly in the last years. The cultivation method ranges from offshore to land-based. Integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) is increasingly used due to its great advantages. Algae aquaculture is a promising area with the possibility of improving methods and techniques with great potential in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical areas.