Razieh Nazari-Vanani, Naghmeh Sattarahmady, Hossein Heli
Turmeric is a member of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae). It contains i) curcumin, ii) demethoxycurcumin, and iii) bisdemethoxycurcumin. Curcumin is the active component in the turmeric and has promising pharmacological properties. Despite promising clinical potentials, it has limited clinical use due to poor bioavailability. Thus, improving the water-solubility and bioavailability of curcumin are very interested. One of the approaches to overcome low bioavailability of curcumin is the formulation of curcumin into nanoscale drug delivery systems working as nanocarriers. They are emerging strategies for therapeutic agents that cannot be used effectively as conventional drug formulations. In addition, they have many advantages such as improving the stability, ease of preparation, reducing the dose, reduction of side effects, and solubility enhancement. For this purposes, the aspects and role of nanoscale drug delivery systems in the solubility enhancement of curcumin was presented and discussed in this review.