Toward Improving Medication Adherence: The Suppression of Bitter Taste in Edible Taste Films

Abstract

Bitter taste is aversive to humans, and many oral medications exhibit a bitter taste. Bitter taste can be suppressed by the use of inhibitors or by masking agents such as sucralose. Another approach is to encapsulate bitter tasting compounds in order to delay their release. This delayed release can permit the prior release of bitter masking agents. Suppression of bitter taste was accomplished by encapsulating a bitter taste stimulus in erodible stearic acid microspheres, and embedding these 5 µmeter diameter microspheres in pullulan films that contain sucralose and peppermint oil as masking agents, along with an encapsulated masking agent (sucralose). Psychophysical tests demonstrated that films which encapsulated both quinine and sucralose produced a significant and continuous sweet percept when compared to films without sucralose microspheres. Films with both quinine and sucralose microspheres also produced positive hedonic scores that did not differ from control films that contained only sucralose microspheres or only empty (blank) microspheres. The encapsulation of bitter taste stimuli in lipid microspheres, and embedding these microspheres in rapidly dissolving edible taste films that contain masking agents in both the film base and in microspheres, is a promising approach for diminishing the bitter taste of drugs and related compounds.

Research for the selection of taste corrigents, filter materials and primary packaging for oral solution with magnesium salts

“…Among the reasons that lead to low compliance of patients to treatment, the taste and smell of the drug plays a key role along with the factors of frequency of administration, amount of the drug, duration and cost of therapy [28]. There are a number of ways to mask the unpleasant taste and smell of the drugs.…”

Preformulation and Long-Term Stability Studies of an Optimized Palatable Praziquantel Ethanol-Free Solution for Pediatric Delivery

“…Regarding both palatability assays, it could be more convenient to mask the unpleasant PZQ taste using mint as flavor and sucralose as sweetener, even though fruit flavors are preferred by pediatric patients in some circumstances [ 59 ]. It is worth mentioning that such a combination of excipients was successfully used in a pilot study with fifteen human volunteers to reduce the bitter taste of microencapsulated quinine HCl [ 60 ].…”

“…15, x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 16study with fifteen human volunteers to reduce the bitter taste of microencapsulated quinine HCl[60].…”