Formulation and Challenges in Liposomal Technology in Functional Food and Nutraceuticals

Abstract

Since its discovery, liposomes have been vastly studied and applied in the field of pharmaceutical, food, and nutraceutical industry. Being a delivery vesicle, liposomes are capable of effectively transporting drugs, food, or nutraceuticals into the body by facilitating absorption directly in the mouth while protecting the encapsulated substance from degradation by the acidic environment of the stomach. Their ability to incorporate both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs as well as their biocompatibility, reduced risk of 166toxic side effects made them the most extensively studied drug delivery system. The application of liposomes in the food industry was first published in the early 1980’s. The initial application of liposome included the controlled release of enzymes in the making of cheese. Further, both lipid and aqueous soluble food ingredients were delivered by liposomal technology. However, designing food and nutraceuticals into liposomal delivery system comes with its own challenges. This chapter details about the techniques in developing liposomal based food and nutraceuticals, formulations, and characterization of liposomal products in functional food and nutraceuticals, challenges in formulating functional food and nutraceuticals into liposomal systems, global market of liposomal system in functional food and nutraceutical products and recent patents related to liposomal technology in functional food and nutraceuticals.