Excipients are inactive ingredients added to pharmaceutical compounds for various reasons, such as masking flavors, controlling dosages, and facilitating delivery. Drug companies must demonstrate their safety, and they may need to be listed on labels. Excipients have been used for centuries, and they can make drugs easier to absorb, swallow, or break down. They can also act as preservatives or binders. Inhalers, sprays, and creams use excipients for their method of administration. People with allergies need to be careful of inactive ingredients in medicine.
An excipient is an inactive ingredient that is added to a pharmaceutical compound. There are a variety of reasons for using excipients, ranging from the desire to hide off-flavors to the need to precisely control dosages. As a general rule, drug companies must be able to demonstrate that an excipient is safe for use before they can sell a drug that contains the product, and inactive ingredients may need to be listed on drug labels to comply with the law.
People have used excipients in the delivery of medicines for centuries. Historically, for example, medicines were often mixed with honey or syrup to mask the flavor so that children would take them. This use of the excipient hides the flavor and facilitates delivery. Other excipients may be added to drugs as diluents, in the case of drugs with potent active ingredients, to facilitate the delivery of accurate doses by making the drug bulkier.
An inactive ingredient can make it easier for a drug to be absorbed into the body or slow down the rate at which a drug is absorbed, in the form of a time-release coating that allows the drug to slowly dissolve. Other excipients can make drugs physically easier to swallow or make it easier for the drug to break down once it reaches the right area of the body. Excipients can also act as binders, holding the ingredients of a drug together so that it can be delivered correctly.
Some drugs tend to separate or lose potency when kept in storage, in which case the excipient can act as a preservative to keep the drug potent. Other drugs quickly lose action when mixed with an excipient, in which case the active and inactive ingredients can be packaged separately and mixed as needed. This is common with drugs used in intravenous administration, which often come in the form of powders that must be mixed with intravenous fluids for administration.
Inhalers, sprays and creams use excipients for their method of administration. Inhalers, for example, contain propellants that aerosolize the drug and ensure it is delivered evenly, while topical creams are typically made with an inactive cream base to which the active ingredients are added.
People with allergies need to be careful of inactive ingredients in medicine, because allergens can be involved in the production of some inactive ingredients. Corn, wheat, dairy products and eggs are all used to make medicines. In patients with allergies, it may be necessary to specifically request a brand name that is known to be safe rather than a generic version to ensure that a drug will not cause an allergic reaction.
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