Phytosomes - An Overview on Scientific Rebellion in Phytomedicine

Over the past century, phytochemical and phytopharmacological sciences established the compositions, biological activities and health promoting benefits of numerous plant products. Most of the biologically active constituents of plants are polar or water soluble molecules. However, water soluble phytoconstituents (like flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids etc) are poorly absorbed either due to their large molecular size which cannot absorb by passive diffusion, or due to their poor lipid solubility; severely limiting their ability to pass across the lipid-rich biological membranes, resulting poor bioavailability. The term "phyto" means plant while "some" means cell-like. Phytosomes are little cell like structure. This is advanced forms of herbal formulations which contains the bioactive phytoconsituents of herb extract surrounds and bound by a lipid. Because of water soluble herbal extract and lipophilic outer layer phytosomes shows better absorption and as a result produce better bioavailability and actions than the conventional herbal extracts containing dosage form. Phytosome technology has been effectively used to enhance the bioavailability of many popular herbal extracts including milk thistle, ginkgo, biloba, grape seed, green tea, hawthorn, ginseng etc and can be developed for various therapeutic uses or dietary supplements.