Current Review on Plant based Pharmaceutical Excipients

Plants act as a major source of medicines and are used to formulate various pharmaceutical preparations. Apart from this, they act as excellent pharmaceutical aids as well as excipients. An effort has been made for the complete study of plants under different categories of plant-based thickeners, emulsifiers, suspenders, binders, etc. The herbs were differentiated on the basis of their role as flavoring, sweetening, colouring, gelling, thickening, emulsifying, suspending and binding agents. The use of natural excipients to impart the goodness of natural bioactive agents has been hampered by synthetic materials. However, advantages offered by these natural excipients are enormous as being non-toxic, affordable and easily available. The activity of the excipients partly determines the quality of medicines. The herbal excipients act better in many ways when compared to their synthetic substitutes.