A Review on Nanotechnology Mediated - Herbal Drug Delivery for the Treatment of Obesity

Since ancient times, traditional herbs have been widely used around the world for health promotion and therapy. Obesity is a complex metabolic disorder and is becoming a mammoth problem that adversely affects an individual’s quality of life. Conventional therapy for the management of obesity mainly involves the use of synthetic moiety and bariatric surgical procedures which has severe side effects and patient non-compliance. To circumvent these limitations, plant-derived medicines are utilized which are safe, effective, economic, and easily available. The advancement of nanotechnology enables the development of novel strategies that could potentiate the therapeutic efficacy of the phytoconstituents with minimal toxic effects and promotes the controlled release of the plant bioactive compounds. Moreover, great efforts have been made through targeted nanotechnology-based herbal treatment, where novel nanocarriers are employed as herbal drug delivery vehicles to improve the pharmacokinetics of anti-obesity drugs. The recent advancement in phytonanotechnology have opened an avenue to explore novel carriers to utilize bioactive compounds in biomedical and therapeutic applications. In the current review, an extensive search is conducted for the existing original research articles using databases i.e., Google Scholar, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Embase, Baidu, etc. Further, painstaking efforts are made to compile and update the novel herbal nanocarriers such as liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, etc. which are widely used for the treatment of obesity. This article portrays a comprehensive survey of the novel strategies employed by the innovators working exclusively on herbal drug delivery systems. The recent development of nanotechnology-based herbal drug delivery has a wide range of biomedical applications and has provided an unprecedented opportunity to improve the treatment of obesity and obesity-related comorbidities. Furthermore, the advancement of phytopharmacological science has led to several novel strategies with improved nanotherapeutics for the management of obesity. Scientific research is still being carried out in the field of nanotechnology for a better perspective on herbal drug delivery for obesity treatment over conventional therapy.