We all have to use medicines once in our lives to treat certain diseases. We have to use medicines when we are suffering from fever, sore throat, cancers, heart problems, hypertension, and diabetes. It means that medicines have now been discovered to treat all sorts of diseases. But wait, have you ever think about the medicines that which sorts of ingredients are used to formulate medicines. There are different sorts of ingredients used in the formulation of medicines. Just like we prepare our food we use different sorts of ingredients to prepare meal. These are many main items, side items and spices. Similarly, different ingredients are used to formulate medicines. The details of these ingredients can be seen in this article.
Active ingredient:
Drug:
Drug is the active ingredient of medicine which exerts its therapeutic effect on our body. Drugs are obtained from plants, animal and microbiological sources. These are obtained in combined forms from these sources and then these are separated from other ingredients by applying different separation techniques. For example, digoxin is obtained from plant digitalis, heparin is obtained from Leech.
Excipients:
Colorants:
We see that there are different colors of medicines and these are easy to identify on the basis of colors. There are different colors of medicines such as yellow, blue, red, white. These colorants are compatible with other ingredients of medicines and these cause no harm to our body. These coloring agents help in the identification of medicines, increase stability of light sensitive drugs.
Preservatives:
When medicines are manufactured then it is ensured that medicines can remain stable for a longer period of time. For this purpose, preservatives are added in the medicines to prevent them from growth of microbes and to increase the stability of medicines. Alcohols are one of most popular preservatives for medicines such as methanol, ethanol.
Binders:
These are used to bind the ingredients of tablets together. Different types of ingredients are used in the tablets and then it is important to bind these ingredients together. There are different types of binders such as solution binders, dry binders. Cellulose, polyethylene glycol are the mostly used binders.
Disintigrants:
When we take our tablet then it is important that it dissolves in our body to exert its effect on our body. So for this purpose, disintegrants are used so that tablet may break in our body. Sodium starch glycolate, carboxymethyl cellulose are the mostly used disintegrants.
