Stability of Carotenoids

Carotenoids are natural products having a broad spectrum of biological applications, such as, anti-cancer, anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory and anti-ageing etc. Chemically, they contain long chains of carbon atoms having conjugation and these conjugated systems enable them to act as radical scavengers. Therefore, they have potential applications in food and pharmaceutical industry. However, their structural features limit their versatile applications by rendering them unstable under normal environment. They undergo various reactions quite fast, for example, air oxidation, thermal and photo degradation and acidic degradation etc. which require special conditions for their storage. Encapsulation by using various nano-carriers has emerged as an excellent technique to maintain their stability and thus enabling to exploit their effectiveness for human health and quality life. A range of polysaccharides i.e. alginates, cellulose, chitosan, dextrins, modified starch, proteins and lipids have been studied as nano-carriers. Various othr materials such as, nanoliposomes, niosomes, bilosomes, solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs), nano-structured lipid carriers (NLCs) and nano-hydrogels have also been employed for encapsulation of carotenoids. In this chapter, the stability of carotenoids under various conditions is discussed. In-addition, various methods of encapsulation are also described in detail.