Abstract

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF ANTIDIABETIC TABLETS: EFFECT OF ABSORPTION ENHANCSER

Ashwini Kumar*, Mayank Bansal

Abstract

The present study is to formulate an antidiabetic tablet containing natural permeation enhancer which enhances gastrointestinal absorption of poorly absorbable antidiabetic drug. Metformin hydrochloride (HCl) is a BCS class III drug which has high solubility and poor intestinal absorption characteristic. The gastrointestinal absorption of metformin hydrochloride was enhanced using natural enhancer like gokhru fruit (Tribulus terrestris Linn) extract. The permeation of drug was measured by everted sac technique using chicken intestine. The drug was absorbed through chicken intestine mainly by passive diffusion mechanism. The absorbed drug was determined by using U.V Visible Spectrophotometer at 234nm. After analyzing the results it was found that gokhru fruit extract enhance the absorption of metformin hydrochloride from chicken intestine and the absorption enhancement activity of the plant was due to the presence of saponins in the extract. This extract was used to reduce dose of metformin hydrochloride in tablet dosage form. For optimizing the dose of metformin hydrochloride, different batches of tablets (F0 to F11) was prepared by wet granulation method with different concentration of gokhru extract and metformin hydrochloride. Tablets were evaluated for various parameters like weight variation, hardness, friability, disintegration, dissolution, permeation and stability. Results showed batch F7 and F8 was permeated in amount similar to control batch F0. But after studying all evaluation parameters F7 was found to be optimized batch because tablet hardness was acceptable for this batch and it does not take moisture from environment while F8 easily taken moisture from environment and its hardness was comparatively less than F7.

Keywords: Metformin hydrochloride, Absorption enhancer, Gokhru fruit extract, Everted sac method, Antidiabetic tablet.