Design, formulation, and evaluation of ginger medicated chewing gum

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Various ginger compounds improve gastrointestinal problems and motion sickness. The main effects of ginger allocate to some phenolics such as gingerols and shogaols that act as their active agents. Chewing gums are among convenient dosage forms which patients prefer due to their advantages. Hence, this study tried to design, formulate, and evaluate ginger chewing gum of favorable taste and texture to avoid motion sickness and have gastro-protective and anti-oxidant effect. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Dried ginger rhizomes were percolated to extract ginger compounds. Total phenolics were measured in 70 hydro-alcoholic extract of ginger by gallic and tannic acid standards using Folin-Ciocalteu's reagent. Chewing gums containing 50 mg of concentrated extract were prepared. Content uniformity, weight variation, release pattern, organoleptic, and mechanical properties were evaluated. RESULTS: Phenolic content was measured 61.50 +/- 5.27 mg/g and 76.75 +/- 5.45 mg/g of concentrated extract as gallic acid and tannic acid equivalents, respectively. Release pattern of formulations with different gum bases and sweeteners demonstrated almost 100 release of drug. Evaluation of organoleptic properties was on 10 healthy volunteers and later prepared formulations exhibited better characteristics. Formulations without any flavorants have higher acceptability. Evaluation of mechanical properties showed higher stiffness of F15. CONCLUSION: Ginger chewing gum comprises admissible properties to be used as a modern drug delivery system due to its advantageous results in motion sickness. It passed all the specified tests for an acceptable chewing gum. Thus, it may be successfully produced to help GI problems.