Active ingredient
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Unsubst". An active ingredient is any ingredient that provides biologically active or other direct effect in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease or to affect the structure or any function of the body of humans or animals.[1]
The similar terms active pharmaceutical ingredient (abbreviated as API) and bulk active are also used in medicine.[2][3] The term active substance may be used to describe the effective chemical used to control bacteria or pests.[4]
Some medication products can contain more than one active ingredient. The traditional word for the active pharmaceutical agent is pharmacon or pharmakon (from Template:Langx, adapted from pharmacos) which originally denoted a magical substance or drug.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
The terms active constituent or active principle are often chosen when referring to the active substance of interest in a plant (such as salicylic acid in willow bark or arecoline in areca nuts), since the word "ingredient" can be taken to connote a sense of human agency (that is, something that a person combines with other substances), whereas the natural products present in plants were not added by any human agency but rather occurred naturally ("a plant doesn't have ingredients").
In contrast with the active ingredients, the inactive ingredients are usually called excipients in pharmaceutical contexts. The main excipient that serves as a medium for conveying the active ingredient is usually called the vehicle. For example, petrolatum and mineral oil are common vehicles. The term "inactive" should not, however, be misconstrued as meaning inert.[5]
Pharmaceuticals
Template:Main article A pharmaceutical dosage form contains the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), which is the drug substance responsible for the therapeutic effect, as well as excipients, which are inactive substances used as the tablet matrix, the liquid in which the active ingredient is suspended, or other pharmaceutically inert materials. Drugs are selected primarily based on their active ingredients.
Patients often have difficulty identifying the active ingredients in their medications and may be unaware of the concept of an active ingredient. When multiple medications are used concurrently, interactions between active ingredients can occur, potentially resulting in severe or life-threatening complications.[1]
Several online resources are available to assist in identifying the active ingredients of medications. For example, the Medicines Database provides information on pharmaceuticals available in Australia.[2]
Herbal medicine
In phytopharmaceutical or herbal medicine, the active ingredient may be either unknown or may require cofactors in order to achieve therapeutic goals. This leads to complications in labelling. One way manufacturers have attempted to indicate strength is to engage in standardization to a marker compound. Standardization has not been achieved yet, however, with different companies using different markers, or different levels of the same markers, or different methods of testing for marker compounds. For example, St John's wort is often standardized to the hypericin that is now known not to be the "active ingredient" for antidepressant use. Other companies standardize to hyperforin or both, ignoring some 24 known additional possible active constituents. Many herbalists believe that the active ingredient in a plant is the plant itself.[6]
See also
- Formulation
- Medication
- Pharmakos
- Regulation of therapeutic goods
- Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster
References
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