Nano-nutraceuticals: Formulation, evaluation, analytical method development and validation

In the United States, "nutraceutical" do not exist as a regulatory category; they are regulated as dietary supplements, food additives by the FDA, drug and cosmetic act.A lipid-based delivery system is one of feasible formulation techniques to encapsulate and improve the oral bioavailability of food bioactive compounds. the λ max of CoQ10, Curcumin and Resveratrol was found to be 274 nm, 430 nm and 307 nm respectively. The development of simultaneous estimation of the three nutraceuticals in the study requires determining the Isobestic point, and it was found to be 272 nm. The final fixed chromatographic conditions include, acetonitrile: 1%tetrahydrofuran: 1%acetic acid (70:20:10) at 1.0 ml/min flow rate as it shows highest resolution with minimum tailing effect. Retention time was 1.97 for CoQ 10, 3.16 min for Resveratrol and 4.89 min for Curcumin respectively. The results indicate all the nutraceutical formulation shows maximum drug release (76.8 to 80.9 %) and follows first order kinetics with the correlation coefficient in the range of 0.7 to 0.784. The criteria for a Nano formulation were established and it is evident from the SEM and AFM images.