Neda Elmi - M.sc student, Food science and technology group, Tabriz university, Tabriz, Iran
Babak Ghanbarzadeh - Professor, Food science and technology group, Tabriz university, Tabriz, Iran

Quercetin is a natural flavonol and is considered as a nutraceutical component. It exhibits antioxidant activity and important biological properties such as anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and etc. It has low water solubility so it is going to be difficult to use it as a health promoting agent. Encapsulation of nutraceutical components with different types of carriers such as lipids, polymers and etc. is an effective method to prevent them from degradation and also increases water solubility and bioavailability of them. In this review study, five lipid based carriers for quercetin encapsulation were studied. These systems were, phytosome, liposome, lipid nanoemulsion (LNE), nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) and solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN). They were compared from aspects like size, encapsulation efficiency and stability. Between all these studied systems, NLC (containing only quercetin) had the smallest size (34±6 nm) and phytosome had the highest encapsulation efficiency (%98).

Nutraceuticals, Bioavailability, Carriers