Study of raft forming anti-reflux preparation of mucilage from Basella alba L.

Abstract

Ceylon spinach (Basella alba) is a plant in the Basellaceae family. The arial part of the plant contains a large amount of mucilage, consisting of polyuronides that may have raftforming property. The objectives of this research were to study the physico-chemical properties of mucilage isolated from Ceylon spinach, to formulate suspension of the mucilage and to evaluate the raft-forming effect of the suspension via in vitro. The results showed that the isolated mucilage had a swelling index of 10.07 ± 0.03, pH 6.61 ± 0.11, and loss on drying of 8.95% ± 0.51. The chemical composition of the mucilage was determined by thermal hydrolysis and analyzed by thin layer chromatography. TLC chromatogram revealed bands corresponded to glucose and galactose. Suspensions were prepared using the isolated mucilage at the concentrations of 6%. Different types and concentrations of suspending agents, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) at 0.75% and 1.00% and carboxymethylcellulose sodium (Na CMC) at 0.50% and 0.75% were used. It was found that the formulation with the best physico-chemical properties was the one containing Na CMC at 0.50%. The percentage of sedimentation volume of the suspension was 44%. It was easily redispersed by 10 times of human shaking. However, raft-forming performed under simulated gastric acid conditions revealed that no raft was formed in all formulations.