BackgroundGhritas are ayurvedic lipid based preparations in which oil or ghee is boiled with prescribed kasaya (polyherbal decoction) and kalka (fine paste of herbs) until the evaporation of aqueous phase transfers the contents into oily phase. The polyherbal decoction used in the preparation predominantly contains water soluble Active Botanical Ingredients (ABIs).MethodsThe column chromatography was used to fractionate the ghrita into polar and non-polar fractions on silica gel as adsorbent using petroleum ether and mixture of ethanol, methanol & water as eluents. These fractions were further analysed by normal and reverse phase HPTLC analysis for the presence of the contents and its polarity.ResultsThe results showed that all the ABIs present in the formulation were polar since the fractionated non-polar fraction did not show the presence of any active botanical ingredients on normal and reverse phase HPTLC analysis.ConclusionsThe ayurvedic system of medicine has got its own technique of incorporating the polar contents into a lipid base for enhanced absorption and delivery of the ABIs at targets

Background Anu Tailam, an Ayurvedic medicated oil where ‘anu’ meant for atom and ‘tailam’ meant for oil and virtually meant for ‘oil of subtle or atomic size particles’. Since the major active ingredients in this formulation are incorporated from the polyherbal decoction, it is expected to contain predominantly water soluble ingredients. Objectives It is hypothesized that these polar active botanical ingredients are present in the formulation should be either suspended in the form of submicron particles or entrapped in the submicron vesicular structures since the formulation did not show any precipitation or phase separation instead showed a monophasic oily liquid with very little moisture. Materials and Methods In the present investigation, the micro architecture of the anu tailam is studied via column chromatography and high performance thin layer chromatography to prove the contents are polar hydrophilic compounds followed by optical microscopy, photon correlation Spectroscopy (PCS) and environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) to study the particle/vesicle size of the formulation. Results In this study, it was proved that the formulation contained only polar ingredients and can be extracted in polar solvents like methanol and ethanol. It was also found that the formulation taken for study contained nano particles of the active botanical ingredients embedded in a network of vesicular structures of the lipid base. Conclusion The selected Ayurvedic formulation ‘anutailam’ found to contain novel nano drug delivery system to deliver water soluble ingredients across barriers.

Abstract:! The! guggulu! containing! polyherbal!

Ayurvedic lipid based formulations falling under Sneha Kalpana in ayurvedic formulary were made by boiling the polyherbal decoction with oil or ghee with paste of other botanicals until the evaporation of water. The lipid nature and the contents of oil or ghee were tending to interfere with the determination of active botanical ingredients (ABIs) from Ayurvedic lipid based formulations in preparing the samples for the chromatographic analysis. Most of the earlier methods used for the sample preparation for the analysis of ayurvedic lipid based formulations were utilized either dissolving directly in a nonpolar solvent or liquid-liquid extraction with aqueous methanol (mostly 90% methanol) in determination of ABIs by HPLC, HPTLC and GC. Solid phase extraction on silica gel columns using hexane and 90% methanol was performed for the sample preparation. Both fractions were analyzed by HPTLC analysis on pre-coated silica gel 60 GF254 aluminium plates using Toluene: Ethyl acetate: Methanol (7:2:1) as mobile phase. The results have shown that the ABIs were maximally extracted in the methanol, the polar fraction whereas the non-polar fraction by hexane did not show the presence of ABIs. The visualization under UV light followed by densitometric analysis have shown an increased number of spots as well as highly concentrated spots with respect to the sample prepared from the formulation dissolved in hexane. The samples prepared by solid phase extraction produced the clear spots with good resolution in HPTLC when compared to the samples prepared by conventional methods and can be used for the determination and quantification of ABIs in these formulations.