Virtue of Nanotechnology in Confronting Obesity: Recent Advances

Background: Obesity has been a serious health issue over the last decades, both in the affluent western world and developing countries. Obesity is linked to major health complications, such as diabetes, cardiac disorder, cancer, hypertension, sleep apnoea, etc. Available treatments, such as bariatric surgery and pharmacotherapy are often accompanied by adverse side effects and poor patient compliance. Nanotechnology is a discipline that is concerned with material characteristics at the nanoscale, and offers novel techniques for disease detection, management, and prevention. Objectives: Recent progress in the field of obesity research at its interface with nanotechnology is the main focus of this study. Nanomedicine has greatly enhanced the health status of the people suffering from obesity as it provides non-obtrusive techniques for the management and treatment of obesity. Methods: Literature survey was performed using PubMed, Science Direct, and Web of Science search engines with- terms nanotechnology, nanomedicine and obesity. The research focused primarily on articles published between the years 2000 and 2019. Results: Original and innovative approaches in the developments of nano-technology based drug delivery strategies have been described. Nanotechnology has been widely proposed to combine herbal medicine for the treatment of obesity, because nano-structured systems might be able to potentiate the action of plant extracts, reducing the required dose and side effects, and improving activity. This will offer a wide era of treatment options, which will directly improve the patient’s compliance. Conclusion: This review surveys recent developments of nanotechnology-­128;based drug delivery strategies, which are highlighted and discussed for obesity treatment with an emphasis on the enhanced therapeutic efficiency and minimized side effects. The insights for future development related to the management of obesity have also been discussed.