Recent Advances in Water-Soluble Vitamins Delivery Systems Prepared by Mechanical Processes (Electrospinning and Spray-Drying Techniques) for Food and Nutraceuticals Applications-A Review

The Effect of Vitamins on the Immune Systems of Pigs

In modern pig farming, there are many environmental, physiological or social stresses that weaken the immune response and increase susceptibility to disease. Nutritional management has a significant impact on the efficiency of the immune system in pigs. Among the various nutrients, vitamins have been shown to have specific effects on immune system activity. However, the needs of modern genetic types are not met by the dietary recommendations for vitamins in pig diets. The present study therefore summarises the data on dietary integration with supranutritional doses of vitamins in gestating and lactating sows and post-weaning piglets in terms of the immune response. The present data highlight that high doses of dietary vitamins are an effective way to improve the immune system, antioxidant status and gut health. Further studies are needed to deepen the understanding of the role of dietary supplementation with vitamins in pigs on immune system and gut functionality.

The Role of Vitamins in Spinal Cord Injury: Mechanisms and Benefits

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a common neurological disease worldwide, often resulting in a substantial decrease in quality of life, disability, and in severe cases, even death. Unfortunately, there is currently no effective treatment for this disease. Nevertheless, current basic and clinical evidence suggests that vitamins, with their antioxidant properties and biological functions, may play a valuable role in improving the quality of life for individuals with SCI. They can promote overall health and facilitate the healing process. In this review, we discuss the mechanisms and therapeutic potential of vitamins in the treatment of SCI.

Innovative Encapsulation Strategies for Food, Industrial, and Pharmaceutical Applications

Bioactive metabolites obtained from fruits and vegetables as well as many drugs have various capacities to prevent or treat various ailments. Nevertheless, their efficiency, in vivo, encounter many challenges resulting in lower efficacy as well as different side effects when high doses are used resulting in many challenges for their application. Indeed, demand for effective treatments with no or less unfavorable side effects is rising. Delivering active molecules to a particular site of action within the human body is an example of targeted therapy which remains a challenging field. Developments of nanotechnology and polymer science have great promise for meeting the growing demands of efficient options. Encapsulation of active ingredients in nano-delivery systems has become as a vitally tool for protecting the integrity of critical biochemicals, improving their delivery, enabling their controlled release and maintaining their biological features. Here, we examine a wide range of nano-delivery techniques, such as niosomes, polymeric/solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, and nano-emulsions. The advantages of encapsulation in targeted, synergistic, and supportive therapies are emphasized, along with current progress in its application. Additionally, a revised collection of studies was given, focusing on improving the effectiveness of anticancer medications and addressing the problem of antimicrobial resistance. To sum up, this paper conducted a thorough analysis to determine the efficacy of encapsulation technology in the field of drug discovery and development.

A Simple UV Spectrophotometric Method Based on Continuous Wavelet Transform and Multivariate Calibration Model for the Concurrent Analysis of Three Water-Soluble Vitamins in Fertility Supplements

BACKGROUND

Owing to the presence of overlapping spectra in pharmaceutical components, classical spectrophotometry is hard for concurrent determination. The advance of chemometrics along with UV-Vis spectrophotometry has contributed to solving this problem.

OBJECTIVE

In this study, a fast, easy, precise, accurate, low-cost, and eco-friendly spectrophotometric technique was introduced and validated for the simultaneous analysis of vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and vitamin C in fertility supplements for men and women using continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and partial least squares (PLS) techniques without using time-consuming extraction process and organic solvents.

METHOD

In the CWT method, the zero-crossing technique was applied to obtain the optimum points for plotting calibration curves for each component. The validation of both methods was evaluated by analyzing several mixtures with different concentrations. The efficiency of the proposed methods was also surveyed on commercial capsules.

RESULTS

Wavelet families, including Symlet (sym2) at 230, Biorthogonal (bior1.3) at 378 nm, and Daubechies (db2) at 261, were considered for vitamins B6, B12, and C, respectively. The linear range was found to be 8-20, 8-20, and 10-25 μg/mL with the coefficient of determination (R2) equal to 0.9982, 0.9978, and 0.9701 for B6, B12, and C, respectively. Low limit of detection (LOD) (<0.09 μg/mL) and limit of quantification (LOQ) <0.9 μg/mL were achieved. The mean recovery values in synthetic mixtures were from 98.38 to 98.89% and from 99.83 to 99.99%, where root-mean-square error (RMSE) of not more than 0.4 and 0.05 using the CWT and PLS methods, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The obtained results from the commercial capsules, applying the suggested techniques, were compared to those yielded by the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. According to the results, there are no significant differences, and they were in good agreement. According to all the mentioned cases, the proposed approaches can replace the time-consuming and costly HPLC method in quality control laboratories.

HIGHLIGHTS

Green spectrophotometry coupling chemometrics methods were proposed. Simultaneous determination of three water-soluble vitamins in fertility supplements was done using these approaches. Rapidity, simplicity, low cost, and accuracy are the benefits of the proposed methods. A HPLC technique was used as a reference method to compare with the chemometrics methods.

A Brief Review on the Electrohydrodynamic Techniques Used to Build Antioxidant Delivery Systems from Natural Sources

Extracts from plants have been one of the main sources of antioxidants, namely polyphenols. The associated drawbacks, such as instability against environmental factors, low bioavailability, and loss of activity, must be considered during microencapsulation for a better application. Electrohydrodynamic processes have been investigated as promising tools to fabricate crucial vectors to minimize these limitations. The developed microstructures present high potential to encapsulate active compounds and for controlling their release. The fabricated electrospun/electrosprayed structures present different benefits when compared with structures developed by other techniques; they present a high surface-area-to-volume ratio as well as porosity, great materials handling, and scalable production-among other advantages-which make them able to be widely applied in different fields, namely in the food industry. This review presents a summary of the electrohydrodynamic processes, main studies, and their application.

Electrospinning of Microstructures Incorporated with Vitamin B9 for Food Application: Characteristics and Bioactivities

The food industry has been expanding, and new vectors to entrap vitamins have been constantly investigated, aiming at versatile systems with good physico-chemical characteristics, low-cost production, high stability and the efficient release of active ingredients. The vitamin B9 (folic acid or folate) is essential for the healthy functioning of a variety of physiological processes in humans and is beneficial in preventing a range of disorders. In this study, two approaches were developed to encapsulate vitamin B9. Zein and the combination of modified starch with two plasticizers were the selected encapsulating agents to produce microstructures via the electrospinning technique. The objective was to improve the stability and the B9 antioxidant capacity in the final formulations. The work strategy was to avoid limitations such as low bioavailability, stability and thermosensitivity. The microstructures were fabricated and the morphology and shape were assessed by scanning electron microscopy. The B9 release profiles of modified starch and zein microstructures were analyzed in simulated gastric fluid at 37 °C, and in deionized water and ethanol at room temperature. The B9 encapsulation efficiency and the stability of the systems were also studied. The ABTS assay was assessed and the antioxidant activity of the produced microstructures was evaluated. The physico-chemical characterization of loaded B9 in the microstructures was achieved. High encapsulation efficiency values were achieved for the 1% B9 loaded in 12% w/w modified starch film; 5% B9 vitamin encapsulated by the 15% w/w modified starch with 4% w/w tween 80; and 4% w/w glycerol film with heterogeneous microstructures, 5% w/w zein compact film and 10% w/w zein film. In conclusion, the combinations of 7 wt.% of modified starch with 4 wt.% tween 80 and 4 wt.% glycerol; 15 wt.% of modified starch with 4 wt.% tween 80 and 4 wt.% glycerol; and 12 wt.% modified starch and 5 wt.% zein can be used as delivery structures in order to enhance the vitamin B9 antioxidant activity in the food and nutraceutical fields.