Applications of Nanostructured Lipid Carriers: Recent Advancements and Patent Review

Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) are a nano-particulate carrier system consisting of solid lipids, liquid lipids, emulsifying agents, and water. NLCs have gained continuous significance in recent times and have displayed tremendous drug delivery benefits against conventional dosage compositions. NLCs have significant prospects in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Its pharmaceutical application represents a wide spectrum of conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, Parkinsonism, epilepsy, hyperlipidemia, cancer, alopecia, hormone deficiency, topical inflammation, ocular, hepatic, and fungal diseases. This review briefly describes nanostructured lipid carriers in terms of their production techniques, characterization, recent advancements in pharmaceutical applications, and functional food delivery. This study also presented a review of recent patents based on nanostructured lipid carriers.