FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF STABILIZED BETA-CAROTENE 7.5% DISPERSION IN MULTIVITAMIN SYRUP

M. Rajesh*, Nadar Antonprisca Jeyapaul and P. Ramkumar

ABSTRACT

In most of the multivitamin oral syrups, there are instability problems of vitamin A with vitamin D and E. Beta-carotene (precursor to vitamin A) has poor stability and several studies had reported that Beta-carotene 7.5% dispersion was not stable in multivitamin syrup formulations. So the main objective of the study was to formulate and stabilize Beta-carotene 7.5% dispersion in multivitamin (Vitamin D and E) syrup formulations. Two formulations (B1 and B2) of Beta-carotene 7.5% dispersion syrups were developed. The formulated syrups were evaluated for appearance, colour, taste, pH, wt/ml, viscosity and drug content. Formulation B2 showed good results in terms of general, physical and chemical parameters evaluated compared to formulation B1. Hence, formulation B2 was considered as an optimized formulation. Multivitamins (Vitamin D & E) was incorporated in the optimized formulation (B3) and the stability of formulation B3 was evaluated in terms of general, physical and chemical parameters. The stability reports of formulation B3 revealed that Beta-carotene 7.5% dispersion was stable even in presence of multivitamins. The study thus concludes that stable formulations of multivitamin syrup with Beta-carotene 7.5% dispersion could be successfully developed.

Keywords: Beta-carotene, Multivitamins, Optimized formulation, Syrup.