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Macronutrients
Published in Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy, Food and Lifestyle in Health and Disease, 2022
Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy
Beeswax. It is a hard amorphous solid, usually light yellow to amber and used in constructing honeycombs. Pure beeswax is the most useful and valuable waxes, and consists of about 80% of long-chain wax esters, 15% of free acids, 10% of hydrocarbon, and small amounts of diols and cholesterol esters. It is used in candle manufacture, and in the food, paper, pharmacy, and rubber industries (118).
The late Middle Ages
Published in Michael J. O’Dowd, The History of Medications for Women, 2020
According to Dorland’s medical dictionary (1932), wax is any one of a series of plastic substances deposited by insects or obtained from plants. They are esters of various fatty acids with higher (usually monohydric) alcohols. The wax used in pharmacy is principally beeswax, the material which honeycomb is made from. It consists chiefly of ceran and myricin. Chinese wax is a hard white wax of insect origin procured from Fraxinus chinensis, a Chinese ash tree while Japanese wax comes from the fruit of bayberry (Myrica cerifera) and other species of the same genus. Beeswax is obtained by melting the walls of the honeycomb of the bee (Apis mellfera) with hot water and removing the foreign matter. Cerason or mineral wax is obtained by purifying ozokerite, a naturally-occurring solid paraffin. It is used as a substitute for beeswax or hard paraffin. Cera alba or white beeswax is a somewhat translucent solid obtained by air-bleaching wax and ‘being of moderate temperament, forms the basis of many other medicines’ (Adams, 1847 p. 169). Wax was contained in ointments, pills, plasters and suppositories.
Natural Products and Stem Cells and Their Commercial Aspects in Cosmetics
Published in Heather A.E. Benson, Michael S. Roberts, Vânia Rodrigues Leite-Silva, Kenneth A. Walters, Cosmetic Formulation, 2019
Sonia Trehan, Rose Soskind, Jemima Moraes, Vinam Puri, Bozena Michniak-Kohn
Bees digest honey to produce wax comprised of over 80 compounds that is used for constructing honeycombs. Beeswax is considered the most important natural wax used in cosmetics, and can be used to regulate the consistency of creams and ointments, as well as in stick formulations (Williams and Schmitt, 1992). Yellow beeswax is the crude material, while white beeswax is a bleached form and beeswax absolute is an alcohol extract. With the addition of sodium borate, also known as borax, yellow and white beeswax become stable emulsifiers and thickeners that are very useful in many cosmetic formulations. However, borax is banned in the European Union for use cosmetic products. Polyethylene glycol-20 sorbitan beeswax is a derivative product used as a surfactant in cosmetics at concentrations of up to 11%. Beeswax absolute can be used in fragrances (Leung et al., 2010). Myricyclic alcohol can be extracted from beeswax and used in pomades for its wound-healing properties. Oftentimes, synthetic beeswax substitutes are used nowadays in cosmetic formulations (Corbeil et al., 2000). Bees also produce other products, the most famous being honey, a sugary substance that is based on flower nectar. Honey components are able to penetrate the epidermis, stimulate skin cell activity, improve skin tone and heal wounds. It should be noted that honey contains some volatile compounds that are destroyed by heat. Honey is becoming more popular as an active ingredient in various cosmetic formulations, including in skin creams, facial masks and hair conditioners. In addition to honey, bees produce royal jelly that is fed to larvae and queen bees (Corbeil et al., 2000). Royal jelly contains vitamins, amino acids and hormones that are important for maintaining cell function, promoting hair growth, ensuring nail elasticity, and reducing hyperpigmentation and age spots (Ramadan and Al-Ghamdi, 2012). Notably, royal jelly contains vitamin B12 and can thus be used for oil and sensitive skin types (Corbeil et al., 2000). Propolis is a sticky substance composed of a mixture of tree resin and bee gland secretions that bees use for maintaining their hive and for mummifying any intruders of the hive. Propolis has antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Propolis can be found in cosmetic products, particularly in several European countries (Corbeil et al., 2000). Spermaceti is a wax extracted from the head of sperm whales. However, only synthetic forms of this substance are currently available due to restrictions on commercial whaling (Corbeil et al., 2000).
Antimicrobial activity of flavonoids glycosides and pyrrolizidine alkaloids from propolis of Scaptotrigona aff. postica
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2023
T. M. Cantero, P. I. Silva Junior, G. Negri, R. M. Nascimento, R. Z. Mendonça
The beekeeping products, honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, and beeswax, are vulnerable to pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) contamination, attributed to nectar and plant pollen rich in PAs collected by bees and transferred to bee products (Celano et al. 2019, Sixto et al. 2019, Wang et al. 2019, De Jesus Inacio et al. 2020, Brugnerotto et al. 2021). Bee pollen may be contaminated with PAs and their N-oxides (PANOs). Lycopsamine-type PAs/PANOs were predominant in bee pollen, while heliotrine-type PAs/PANOs were less frequent and contributed with lower contents (De Jesus Inacio et al. 2020). Echimidine, lycopsamine, and intermedine were the most abundant alkaloids detected in honey, along with lesser amounts of each of their N-oxides (Kowalczyk et al. 2018, Hungerford et al. 2019, Wang et al. 2019). Echimidine-N-oxide was the main alkaloid detected in honey and nectar samples, while echivulgarine-N-oxide was the main PA found in plant pollen, indicating that nectar contributes more significantly to PA contamination in honey than pollen collected in plant (Lucchetti et al. 2016, Kast et al. 2019, Gottschalk et al. 2020, Picron et al. 2020). Honey from stingless bees, Scaptotrigona bipunctata Lepeletier, and S. postica Latreille, exhibited in vitro antimicrobial activity against gram positive and gram negative bacteria, including multidrug-resistant strains (Nishio et al. 2016).
Fabrication of extended-dissolution divalproex tablets: a green solvent-free granulation technique
Published in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy, 2020
Amr Khaled, Sameh Abdel-Hamid, Maha Nasr, Omaima A. Sammour
The pharmacokinetic parameters of the selected beeswax and Compritol® tablets were compared to that of the marketed product Depakote® ER tablets, and displayed in Table 6 and Figure 6. Results showed no significant differences in Tmax and Cmax between the lipid HMG tablets and the marketed product. Rapid DVS onset in all tablet types was observed (Cmax and Tmax ranged from 20 to 25 µg/mL and 1–2 h, respectively), with gradual decrease of DVS concentration over time. Regarding AUC results, beeswax tablets revealed no significant difference compared to the marketed product with relative bioavailability of 95.67%. On the other hand, the Compritol® tablets’ AUC(0–36) was significantly higher than that of the marketed reference product (p<.05), while AUC(0–∞) showed no significant difference (p > .05) with higher relative bioavailability of 118.06%. The higher bioavailability could be ascribed to the probability of Compritol® based tablets prolonging the GIT residence time, hence making the tablets more available for drug dissolution and absorption [44]. The in vivo behavior of lipids as Compritol® and beeswax is not well discussed in literature, and factors as pancreatic lipolysis, bile juice solubilization, and digestion by intestinal microflora might play a role in the dissolution of drugs from these lipid matrices [45].
Microencapsulation of retinyl palmitate by melt dispersion for cosmetic application
Published in Journal of Microencapsulation, 2020
Aditi Nandy, Eliza Lee, Abhyuday Mandal, Raha Saremi, Suraj Sharma
Beeswax is an insect wax secreted from honeybees, consisting mainly of fatty acid esters (65%), hydrocarbons (23%), free acids (12%) and free alcohols (1%) (Tulloch 1970). In the DSC curve (Figure 3.1), beeswax showed its melting peak (Tm) around 65.84 °C and crystallization peak (Tc) at around 57.5 °C. Paraffin wax, being derived from petroleum source and composed of mostly hydrocarbons (Himran et al.1994), showed Tm at around 64.73 °C and Tc at around 54.83 °C, which were lower than the Tm and Tc of beeswax, respectively. Carnauba wax is a hard wax derived from Brazilian palm leaves, usually with a high content of aliphatic esters (38–40%), diesters of fatty acids (30–34%), a small number of fatty alcohols (10–12%), acids, hydrocarbons, etc. (Vandenburg and Wilder 1970). The Tm of carnauba wax was found at 87 °C whereas the Tc was at 77 °C. Therefore, carnauba wax exhibited the highest melting and crystallization temperatures. These results were consistent with the results obtained by Ruguo et al. (2011) for the thermal properties of the three waxes.