ABSTRACT:
Suspension is coarse dispersion of fine insoluble particles dispersed in liquid medium. To overcome the problem of inadequate dispersion of fine particles in vehicle, settling of dispersed particles and caking in suspension, suspending agents are used. Some suspending agents from natural and synthetic origin are currently available for the formulation of Pharmaceutical suspensions. Synthetic additives suffer from the problems of toxicity, incompatibility, feasibility and they also have high cost. But vegetable additives will provide best solution to the aforesaid problems of synthetic additives. The purpose of this study is to search for a cheap and effective natural suspending agent that can be used as an effective alternative for the formulation of pharmaceutical suspensions. Hence present work is undertaken to evaluate combined mucilage extracted from seeds of Ocimum basilicum, Plantago ovata and Lepodium sativum, for its suspending properties. The individual as well as combined seed mucilages have not shown any toxicity in tested animals. The combined seed mucilage has shown better suspending property at 2.5% level than sodium CMC.