If you’re a food excipient enthusiast, this article is for you!
If you’re wondering what the heck a food excipient is, let me explain: when you look at a dietary supplement or a medication, there are two ingredient lists. The first ingredient list is “Active Ingredients” and explains which ingredients contribute to the desired effect: acetaminophen in Tylenol or cholecalciferol in Vitamin D supplements, for example.
The other ingredients, “Inactive Ingredients,” are food excipients. Food excipients help to improve how nutrients and active ingredients are accessed and absorbed by the body. Researchers explain, “The bioavailability of [nutrients] can be improved by specifically designing food matrices that control their release, solubilization, transport, metabolism, and absorption within the gastrointestinal tract.”1
Food excipients help to improve how nutrients and active ingredients are accessed and absorbed by the body.
How nutrients work
In the world of nutrition, there are nutrients that are known to enhance or compete for absorption. For example, all fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, and K) must have fat present in the intestine in order to move across the intestinal lining into the bloodstream. Vitamin D also enhances absorption of calcium. Conversely, calcium competes with iron for absorption, but iron is better absorbed when vitamin C is present.2 These alliances and feuds seem like minor details, but actually are rather influential in impacting the nutrition status of the consumer.
There are many ways that food excipients can be added to products or combined with certain products in order to improve how the body accesses or absorbs nutrients. This doesn’t just have to do with nutrients. Excipients can be added to food products, dietary supplements, or medications to accomplish a variety of goals.
Types of excipients
Common excipients in dietary supplements include:3
- Flow agents: non-toxic and vegetarian-friendly compounds such as silicon dioxide, magnesium stearate, and stearic acid that help tablets and capsules flow through manufacturing processes smoothly.
- Binders: fiber, usually vegetarian, from cellulose and colloids such as guar gum, xanthan gum, and acacia gum that help to hold together ingredients to keep tablets from crumbling.
- Carriers: ingredients such as rice flour or other naturally-occurring complex carbohydrates that help transport trace and micro nutrients that would be nearly indetectable and impossible to ensure consumption without being transported within another ingredient.
- Acidulants: naturally-occurring, vegetarian acid sources such as citric acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, and aspartic acid that help prevent liquids from being favorable to microbial growth.
Flow agents, binders, carriers, and more…
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The physiological processes of the human body are also important considerations for determining whether or what types of food excipients to use. The digestive tract has varying conditions and processes that contribute to release, absorption, breakdown, and assimilation of foods, supplements, and medications that are consumed.1
Ingestion begins in the mouth, which has a pH of 5-7, and food is broken down using enzymes and mechanical breakdown from chewing. Ingested items are in the mouth for 5-60 seconds. Once the item moves to the stomach, the pH drops to 1-3, and the item is still processed by enzymes, plus undergoes mechanical agitation for 30 minutes to one hour.
Next is the small intestine, where most nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. The pH in the small intestine is 6-7.5, and ingested items are subjected to bile, in addition to enzymes and agitation, for one to two hours.
Finally, the breakdown products of digestion are either assimilated into the bloodstream, or move onto the colon, where ingredients that are not used by the body may be acted on by bacteria during the 12-24 hours until they are excreted as waste.
Food excipients can help to protect nutrients and ingredients until they arrive at the location where they are intended to be useful. For example, a probiotic with no protective ingredients would likely be destroyed in digestive processes prior to reaching the colon, where it would need to be in order to benefit a person’s gut flora.
Final considerations include recognizing the desires and needs of the target audience. If the intended consumer might be concerned about excipients being unnecessary, allergenic, or unethical, it could be worthwhile to carefully choose excipients to meet needs such as veganism or gluten-free, and to use the fewest number of necessary excipients.
Resources
- ResearchGate: Designing food matrices that improve the oral bioavailablity of pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals
- Berkeley Wellness: Nutrients: They’re Team Players
- NOW Foods: Excipients: Functional Ingredients You May Not Know About
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Hi there
I trust you are well
I would like to find out which excipients are commonly used for Moringa leaf powder capsules?