Effect of Light and Storage Time on Vitamin E in Pharmaceutical Products

Pham Phuoc Nhan,Nguyen Kim Hoa

doi:10.19026/bjpt.4.5398

Abstract

Vitamin E is an important oxidant for both plant and animal and a lipid soluble vitamin which occurs naturally in edible plant oils and able to be synthesized by oxygenic bacteria. Besides, cooking oils and edible oil containing seeds, human can intake vitamin E via pharmaceutical products. With simply spectral method, vitamin E contents in tablets were quantified easily during storage. Vitamin E levels in medical products sold on Vietnamese market varied among producers ranging from 15 mg up to about 360 mg/tablet. Vitamin E in eight selected products was degraded gradually with prolonged storage time but much more rapidly in scatter light exposure condition than in the dark. The more vitamin E in the tablets, the quicker degradation occurred. Tablets exposed to natural sun light or UV source depleted vitamin E significantly within 5 h, approximately 50% for both lighted conditions. There was a relatively high tight correlation $(R^2 = 0.8266)$ between tablet price and its vitamin E content. Customer should buy the higher price products rather than the cheaper ones to get sufficient amount of vitamin E. Pharmaceutical vitamin E products should be used up soon after being bought or kept away any light sources.

Highlights

Vitamin E, a lipid soluble vitamin and an essential nutrient for reproduction, was discovered at the University of California at Berkeley in the early of twentieth century (Evans and Bishop, 1922) but we still far from understand completely its biological functions in detail mechanisms (Brigelius-Flohé and Traber, 1999). Packer (1994) named vitamin E as a nature’s master antioxidant
Widely distributing in variously edible plant oils, a number of vitamin E forms occur in oxygenic cyanobacteria (Cheng et al, 2003; Maeda et al, 2005; Nhan, 2007)
It is well known that almost all vitamins are sensitive to Corresponding Author: Pham Phuoc Nhan, Department of Biochemistry and Plant Physiology, College of Agriculture and Applied Biology, Cantho University, 3-2 Street, Cantho City, Vietnam, Tel.: +84946936568; Fax: +847103830814

Summary

Introduction

Vitamin E, a lipid soluble vitamin and an essential nutrient for reproduction, was discovered at the University of California at Berkeley in the early of twentieth century (Evans and Bishop, 1922) but we still far from understand completely its biological functions in detail mechanisms (Brigelius-Flohé and Traber, 1999). Packer (1994) named vitamin E as a nature’s master antioxidant. The stability of vitamin E in some pharmaceutical brands sold on Vietnamese medical market was investigated under different lighted conditions during storage. Vitamin E tablets were stored in the desk for dark condition and on a shelf for light exposure at room temperature in the biochemistry lab.

Results

Conclusion