Ethnomedicine and the Future of Entomotherapy: Navigating Traditional Practices in a Changing World

Abstract

Modern pharmacognosy faces a critical crisis of mounting antimicrobial resistance and novel therapeutic agents to combat it. However, entomotherapy which represents a critical but historically marginalized component of global ethnomedicine offers unprecedented pharmacological potential and yield diverse bioactive compounds with potent analgesic, antibacterial, and immunological properties that could address this bottleneck. This review aims to systemically evaluate the intersection of traditional entomotherapeutic practices and contemporary scientific validation, to identify viable pathways for modern drug discovery. The literature search was conducted on Google Scholar database using keywords such as entomotherapy, ethnomedicine and insect active compounds. The search yielded over 200 peer-reviewed published articles and citations, which were critically analyzed for this review. The scope of this study encompasses global traditional entomotherapeutic practices, focusing specifically on insect-derived bioactive compounds demonstrating documented analgesic, antibacterial, and immunomodulatory properties, as well as the ethical and ecological challenges of their modern integration. The significance of this work lies in establishing a balanced framework that ethically pairs indigenous wisdom with advanced biotechnological evaluation. By championing sustainable conservation practices like entomoculture, this review demonstrates how the scientific community can exploit the vast, untapped chemical landscape of insects to combat global health crises while actively safeguarding cultural heritage and fragile forest ecosystems.