Phytosomes: A technological development to improve the bioavailability of herbal extracts

© 2015, CITA Publicaciones y Documentacion. All rights reserved. Plants are a valuable source of nutrients and active ingredients with interesting health properties. Unfortunately, the human body can have difficulties in absorbing some of them. Therefore, it is not always possible make these substances available to the body cells in sufficient active amount, since in some cases the administration of relatively large amounts of extract (or active ingredient) can cause adverse effects. To solve this problem several technological improvements have been studied. Among them, the development of “phytosomes”, which are obtained thanks to a patented process in which a standardized herbal extract, a fraction thereof, or their constituents, are binded to phospholipids (mainly phosphatidylcholine) to obtain a lipid-molecule complex. This complex exhibits better pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile and it has shown to improve bioavailability. An extensively studied example is the silybin phytosome.