Tasty Spices as Nutraceuticals

Spices, food additives, which are the main sources of taste, colour, and perfume in foods and beverages, are becoming more and more important due to their wide range of applications. Spices are consumed as food additives to improve the sensory quality of foods. Traditional systems of medicine have employed spices for centuries since they have been known to have physiological effects that are good for human health. In the past few decades, pioneering experimental research involving both animal studies and human trials has been carried out which proved thatspices have therapeutic effects. The benefits of spices’ like nutritional, antioxidant, anti-microbial, and therapeutic characteristics are many. These potentials activities of spices also adds up with their far reaching nutraceutical values. The primary health challenges facing humanity today are diabetes, cardio-vascular illnesses, arthritis, and cancer. Thus the anti-diabetic, anti-hypercholesterolemic, anti-carcinogenic, digestive stimulant action, antilithogenic property, anti-inflammatory property, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenicand anti-inflammatory actions of spices are of utmost importance in the current situation. The present chapter deals with review of the nutraceutical and health benefits of various spices used in daily diet

Enhancement of Solubility of Diclofenac Sodium by Pastillation Method

The Diclofenac Sodium is BCS class II drug which comes under the antipyretic class drug, and has a wide range of use. But due to its low solubility it has low dissolution rate and hence reduced bioavailability. There are several methods for the enhancement of solubility and dissolution rate. Pastillation technique is widely employed in chemical industry for solidification and better handling. Pastilles are solidified discrete units, acquired directly from the melt mass. However, this method of pastillation has not been explored for the drug delivery system yet. Literature revels that it can be used as a novel, effective and easiest method for the enhancement of solubility and dissolution rate. The selection of polymer was done by the solubility studies and Kolliphor HS 15 was used to make the pastilles of Diclofenac Sodium. Formation of pastilles were confirmed by FT-IR and further evaluated for % yield, drug contents, solubility study and dissolution test. From the results it was concluded that, solubility of Diclofenac Sodium was increased by pastillation method by 2-fold and dissolution rate was also enhanced by double than that of the drug. Thus, pastillation can be an effective and easiest method to enhance the solubility, dissolution rate and bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs having good permeability.  Keywords: Diclofenac Sodium, Pastillation, Kolliphor HS 15, Solubility enhancement, Solid dispersion