Liposomes as Advanced Delivery Systems for Nutraceuticals.

Liposomes are delivery vehicles for transporting substances into the body effectively via facilitating absorption directly in the mouth or by preventing breakdown by stomach acid. Since the 1970s, liposomes have been investigated as potential drug delivery systems because of their biocompatibility and ability to incorporate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic therapeutic agents. Despite early promise, it was decades later, in the late 1990s to the present, that liposome technologies could create successful commercial products. Oral deliveries are recently emerging as availability of quality phospholipids and reliable homogenization and sizing equipment have become routinely available. Nutritional industry use of liposomes will grow rapidly in the next 5-10 y. High-quality products with more complex mixtures of pure compounds and complex botanical mixtures will offer clinicians less-invasive options for dosing and delivery of these actives.