Tendinopathy is a complex musculoskeletal pathology characterized by pain and dysfunction in the tendon. Tendinopathy management includes pharmacological treatments, which, however, have numerous side effects and low efficacy. New pharmacological approaches are essential to overcome these drawbacks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhytochemistry
October 2025
Pistacia lentiscus L., a Mediterranean evergreen shrub, is well-adapted to drought and valued for its nutraceutical properties. This study investigated how water stress affects the flavonoid and terpene composition of its fruits at two ripening stages: red (R1) and dark purple/black (R2) fruits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEthnoHERBS represents a pioneering multidisciplinary initiative that integrates traditional herbal knowledge with advanced natural product chemistry to promote biodiversity conservation and foster innovative cosmeceutical solutions. The project systematically documents centuries-old ethnobotanical practices across South-Eastern Europe, leading to the identification of a diverse array of medicinal and aromatic plants traditionally used to treat skin disorders. Employing environmentally friendly extraction techniques alongside cutting-edge analytical tools-including UHPLC-HRMS, CPC, and NMR spectroscopy-over 500 bioactive compounds have been characterized, with 30 novel secondary metabolites isolated and structurally elucidated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceuticals (Basel)
January 2025
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a highly lipophilic compound with potential therapeutic applications in neurological disorders. However, its poor aqueous solubility and bioavailability, coupled with instability in physiological conditions, significantly limit its clinical use. : This study aimed to develop and characterize nanovesicles incorporating Tween 20 to enhance CBD encapsulation, stability, and the performance across the blood-brain barrier (BBB).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraditional Chinese herbal medicine (TCM) has been used in China for thousands of years as an integral part of the healthcare system.The use of botanical products deriving from plants from TCM has become very spread and rooted in European Union (EU), generating a manufacturing industry of pronounced size, in particular the segment of food supplements, but recently also medical devices and cosmetics based on plants from TCM, especially in Italy. Only seven Herbal Medicinal Products (HMP) based on plants from TCM are present in EU besides more than 100 monographs on TCM plants are present in .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResins are complex mixtures of natural constituents containing non-volatile and volatile terpenes, in combination with gums and polyphenols, used since ancient times for their medicinal properties. Current research has evidenced their therapeutic value with a plethora of activities. The main limits of resins and their constituents for their clinical use are low water solubility, poor stability and bioavailability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFL., commonly known as the mastic tree or lentisk, is a woody Mediterranean plant revered for its ecological relevance as well as for its extensive ethnobotanical heritage. Historically, the fruits and the resin of have been widely utilized in traditional medicine, underscoring its important role in local healing practices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsnic acid (UA) is one of the most abundant secondary metabolites of lichens. Its antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antitumor properties make it one of the few commercially available lichens compounds. Owing to its low solubility it has limited application, for that reason encapsulation in polymeric micelles (UA-PM) has been used to solve this aspect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Sci Food Agric
March 2025
Nanomaterials (Basel)
October 2024
Essential oils (EOs) are reported to be natural pesticides, but their use to protect crops is very limited due to EOs' high instability and great volatility. Nanovectors represent a very smart alternative, and in this study, EOs from (AEO) and (SEO) were formulated into microemulsions and tested against . The EOs were extracted by steam distillation and analyzed by GC-MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMolecules
September 2024
High concentrations of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) have been linked to diseases, including diabetic complications. The pathophysiological effects of AGEs are mainly due to oxidative stress and inflammatory processes. Among the proteins most affected by glycation are albumin, the most abundant circulating protein, and collagen, which has a long biological half-life and is abundant in the extracellular matrix.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the present study, polymeric micelles were developed to improve the intestinal permeability of an extract of L. leaf with a high content of total polyphenols (49% /), with 41% / corresponding to the oleuropein amount. A pre-formulation study was conducted to obtain a stable formulation with a high loading capacity for extract.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNovel Food is a new category of food, regulated by the European Union Directive No. 2015/2283. This latter norm defines a food as "Novel" if it was not used "for human consumption to a significant degree within the Union before the date of entry into force of that regulation, namely 15 May 1997".
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceutics
September 2023
Inflammatory diseases are common pathological processes caused by various acute and chronic factors, and some of them are autoimmune diseases. Exosomes are fundamental extracellular vesicles secreted by almost all cells, which contain a series of constituents, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFL. leaves contain a wide variety of pentacyclic triterpenes (TTPs). TTPs exhibit many pharmacological activities, including antihyperlipidemic effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTendinopathies represent about 45% of musculoskeletal lesions and they are a big burden in clinics characterized by activity-related pain, focal tendon tenderness and intra-tendinous imaging changes. Many approaches have been proposed for tendinopathies' management (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRheumatoid arthritis is among the most common disabling diseases associated with chronic inflammation. The efficacy of the current therapeutic strategies is limited; therefore, new pharmacological agents and formulation approaches are urgently needed. In this work, we developed a thermosensitive gel incorporating escinosomes, innovative nanovesicles made of escin, stabilized with 10% of tween 20 and loaded with a Carbonic Anhydrase Inhibitor (CAI) bearing a Carbon Monoxide Releasing Moiety (CORM) (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOleanolic acid (OA) is the main triterpenic acid of olive leaves known for numerous pharmacological properties, including antioxidant activity. However, it is poorly soluble in water and consequently with low bioavailability, which limits its pharmacological application. Microemulsions (MEs) are dispersed systems consisting of two immiscible phases that promote rapid solubilization and absorption in the gastrointestinal tract.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, the interest in cannabidiol (CBD) has increased because of the lack of psychoactive properties. However, CBD has low solubility and bioavailability, variable pharmacokinetics profiles, poor stability, and a pronounced presystemic metabolism. CBD nanoformulations include nanosuspensions, polymeric micelles and nanoparticles, hybrid nanoparticles jelled in cross-linked chitosan, and numerous nanosized lipid formulations, including nanostructured lipid carriers, vesicles, SNEEDS, nanoemulsions, and microemulsions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOleanolic acid (OA) is a pentacyclic triterpenoid widely found in the Oleaceae family, and it represents 3.5% of the dry weight of olive leaves. OA has many pharmacological activities, such as hepatoprotection, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-tumor, and anti-microbic activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAndrographolide (AG) is a natural diterpene lactone endowed with considerable therapeutic potential for treating numerous diseases, including neurological disorders, but its low aqueous solubility and scarce bioavailability limit its clinical use. To overcome this problem, AG was encapsulated in escinosomes, special nanovesicles made of escin (ESN), a natural saponin, and phosphatidylcholine. Escinosomes loaded with AG had an average size of 164.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroemulsions are optically nanosized emulsions, isotropic and thermodynamically stable. They represent versatile drug delivery systems with high potential because they can be administered regardless of route. In the present study, we report on the formulation of a microemulsion made with glycerol (2.
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