The Science Behind Coated Tablets & The Insight of Tablet Coating

Have you ever wonder why some of the tablets that prescribed by doctors or pharmacists are coated in various colors and some are just plain white tablets that are uncoated? How do you know that the tablets are coated or not?

It is usually stated in the original box or packaging material as well as the leaflet in the box of medicine whether the tablet is film-coated or not.

 

Another way to find out that the tablet is coated or not is by breaking the tablet into half and see whether there is a thin layer of film covering the surface of the tablet that you can peel off at times. The process which involves the application of thin (20-200µm), polymer-based coatings to an appropriate substrate such as tablets, capsules, pellets is known as film coating. 

Why some tablets need to be film-coated? 

There are many reasons on why pharmaceutical drug manufacturers coat their tablets and are listed in the table below:

For Processing	Improving packaging efficiency Less powdery Reducing cleaning time Reducing tablet breakage and chipping Prevention of cross contamination
For Marketing	Improving visual appearance of tablets Color for branding purposes and trademark
For Product Stability	Protecting the product from moisture, light, oxidation and/or the acidic environment of the stomach Can impart mechanical integrity, color and gloss of the tablets
For Functionality	Many film coating materials have functional properties which enable the creation of sustained or delayed (enteric) release dosage forms
For Consumer	For identity of the drugs Easing swallowability of the tablets Masking the bitter taste and objectionable odors

 Have you ever wonder how the tablets are film-coated?

This sequence of photographs exemplifies the typical film-coating process, where uniformity of coverage is poor in the early stages of the process, and gets progressively better as the process proceeds.

The short video below also illustrates how the tablets are film-coated in the coater machine.

The micro view of the coating process is illustrated in the diagram below.

To know more about the coating solutions, equipments and systems used to film-coat the tablets as well as the procedure and process involved in tablet coating, you can visit this link http://www.dipharma.com/TC_20050401_20.pdf

Is Coconut Oil really BAD for health?

In the past, many people, including some of my family members and friends, often advised me not to consume coconut oil as they said that it is bad for our health because it contains high amount of fats that can raise our cholesterol levels and increase the risk of diseases related to high cholesterol level such as atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.

What some of the people didn't know is that some fats are essential to maintain good health. Dietary fats are classified into two general categories: saturated fats and unsaturated fats. The most obvious difference between saturated fats and unsaturated fats are the presence of double bonds in their chemical structure.

Saturated fats mostly derived from animal products such as meat, dairy and eggs although some are also found in some plant-based sources such as coconut, palm and palm kernel oils whereas unsaturated fats are derived from vegetables and plants. Another way to classified fats is based on the length of the carbon chain within each fatty acid, which either gives us a short chain, medium chain or long chain fatty acid. Short chain fatty acids have less than 6 carbons in the backbone of the chain, medium chain fatty acids have 6 to 12 carbons, whereas long chain fatty acids have 12 or more carbons in their chains, and are the most abundant form of fats in our food sources.

Most of the people would probably think that all saturated fats are bad for health whereas unsaturated fats are beneficial for health. What most people didn't know is that not all saturated fats are bad for health and not all unsaturated fats are good for health. Only those saturated fats that have long chain fatty acids are bad for health as we digest long chain fatty acids differently than the medium and short chain fatty acids. 

Interesting facts and more information about how short, medium and long chain fatty acids are digested differently can be found by clicking at this link http://thirdplanetfood.com/tidbits/?p=1499

An interesting fact that I want to share from the above link is that short and medium chain fatty acids can be absorbed and sent directly to the liver, where they are digested in much the same way as carbohydrates which means they are very likely to be burned as fuel right away, instead of being stored as fat.  In other words, they can be used as fuel as efficiently as a carbohydrate. 

Thus, only long chain saturated fats raise cholesterol levels. Since most of the saturated fats found in coconut oil are medium chain fatty acids, hence coconut oil does not have a negative effect on cholesterol and instead, it helps to protect us against heart disease.

Other advantages of coconut oil include:

• Improving immune system health
• Promoting body's metabolism, leading to weight loss
• Promoting healthy skin 
• Supporting the healthy functioning of the thyroid
• Promote normal platelet function

Thus, it is totally wrong to belief that coconut oil is unhealthy as it is indeed very beneficial to maintain good health. Many researches have been carried out to discover the true benefits of coconut oil and according to Coconut Research Center home page at http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/, coconut oil has now gained long overdue recognition as a nutritious health food and has been described as “the healthiest oil on earth”.