Solvents

Antinutrients are important phytochemicals that also determine the safety of medicinal and nutritional plant parts. The antinutrients of Moringa oleifera and Vernonia amygdalina (bitter leaf) leaves were extracted by soaking, using water, ethanol and hydromethanol (1:1) as solvents. The phytochemical analyses were done both qualitatively and quantitatively (using Spectrophotometer: UV-V15). This study showed that Moringa and bitter leaf contain some antinutritional constituents, including Tannins, Oxalates, Saponins and Alkaloids. Hydromethanol extracted the highest concentration of Tannins (65.91%) from bitter leaf extract. Ethanol extracted the highest concentrations of Oxalates (5.2 x 103 Mg/100g) and Saponins (7,616.84 µg/g) from both medicinal leaves and the highest concentration of Alkaloids from Bitter leaves only. Water extracted the highest concentrations of Alkaloids and Tannins from Moringa leaves only. Generally, ethanol solvent yielded highest crude extraction of antinutrients in the herbs. Therefore, it is also necessary to consider the antinutritional yield of a solvent in the choice of solvents for herbal production.

Various strategies have been widely investigated to enhance the solubility of poorly soluble drugs. These strategies increase the clinical efficacy when the drug is administered orally. Around 40% of novel chemical entities show evidence of poor aqueous solubility and their bioavailability becomes low. Thus to overcome this problem new technologies are applied. This new technologies improve the solubility of those drugs whose water solubility is poor. This new technology is known as SEDDS. Self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS), which are isotropic mixtures of oils, surfactants, solvents and co-solvents/surfactants, can be used for the design of formulations in order to improve the oral absorption of highly lipophilic drug compounds. It can be orally administered in soft or hard gelatin capsules. This formulation enhanced bioavailability due to increase the solubility of drug and minimizes the gastric irritation.