ENCAPSULATION OF EXTRACTS FROM MIDDLE EAST MEDICINAL PLANTS AND ITS ADVANTAGES – A REVIEW ARTICLE

"Medicinal plants have played an important role in the development of human health care and culture, serving as both medicine and food. Herbal drugs have been used for centuries for the treatment of several diseases and many of the new medicines are produced based on recent research on their traditional uses. Medicinal plants of the Middle East are regarded as a rich resource of different valuable bioactive compounds. Such compounds extracted from natural resources maintain many potential health benefits. The application of bioactive compounds is, however, rather limited in food and drug formulations because of their poor bioavailability, fast release and low solubility. Thus, encapsulation can protect the bioactive compounds from environmental stress, improve their physicochemical functionalities, reduce the potent toxicity of drugs, modify the release of encapsulated active materials, reduce dosage, enhance their health-promoting and anti-disease activities. This review discusses the importance of the pharmaceutical properties of thirty-two species of relevant medicinal plants native to the Middle East and their uses in various industrial applications. "