Plant Polysaccharides in Pharmaceutical Applications

Plant polysaccharides are the by-products of photosynthesis within the plants and are being extracted from different parts of the plants, such as leaves, pods, fruits, seeds, cereals, stems, roots, rhizomes, corms, exudates, etc. The important advantages for the uses of plant polysaccharides include easy availability from the nature as plant resources are abundant, sustainable and low cost production, biodegradability, biocompatibility, water solubility, swelling ability, etc. Since long, numerous plant polysaccharides have already been explored and exploited as excipients in a variety of common pharmaceutical dosage forms, such as suspensions, emulsions, gels, tablets, capsules, beads, microparticles, nanoparticles, liposomes, transdermal formulations, buccal formulations, nasal formulations, ophthalmic formulations, etc. The current chapter presents a brief review on the pharmaceutical applications of various plant polysaccharides.