Gelatin means "stiff" and is a colorless dry powder that has been used for centuries in a host of food and pharmaceutical uses. For consumers, gelatin dissolves in the human body at normal body temperature, making it the ideal ingredient in softgels. While protecting the precious actives inside the capsule against oxygen, light, moisture and dust, the gelatin of the softgels affords consumers easy swallowing.
Consumers also appreciate that the capsule size and color can help them to more easily identify the respective pharmaceutical drug or nutrient inside. There is no standard capsule size. Gelatin lends itself to a high degree of flexibility, allowing capsule producers to custom size, shape and color! Reputable gelatin suppliers adhere to strict quality requirements and local and global regulations. Further, these same gelatin companies administer rigorous physical, chemical and microbiological testing before the gelatin is released to capsule producers.
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Get Connected. Why opt for capsules? What are gelatin capsules? What are the benefits of gelatin capsules for nutrients and medications? What is the difference between soft gelatin capsules softgels or gel caps and hard gelatin capsules hardcaps? Hardcaps are produced before filling with the active ingredient.
In a secondary step, contract manufacturers or brand owners fill the active ingredient or drug in the empty gelatin capsules. Softgels or soft capsules are one-piece capsules that are hermetically sealed that contain liquids or semisolid fills.
Unlike hard capsules, softgels are filled at the same time as the capsule is produced. The climate crisis is the challenge of our time.
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Whether suing on behalf of our members to ensure the honest functioning of government, or representing individual consumers seeking redress in court, our litigation draws on our expertise in administrative law, constitutional law, and government transparency. Health Letter , July Some patients find it difficult or impossible to swallow large tablets or capsules. To cope with this problem, patients, caregivers and health care providers frequently crush tablets or open capsules and sprinkle the resulting powder, fragments or granules into food or liquids.
Some patients also may resort to chewing on the pills or capsules before swallowing. However, an important review published in Prescrire International warned that many medicines available in tablet or capsule form are not supposed to be crushed, opened or chewed before swallowing — and that doing so may have serious, sometimes deadly, consequences.
Oral medications available in tablet or capsule form contain one or more active ingredients — the actual drug intended to treat a particular disease or condition — and several inactive ingredients. Inactive ingredients include coating materials, flavorings, dyes and binders that hold tablets or granules from capsules together. Drug companies use complex manufacturing techniques to combine these ingredients into final products that are designed to release their active ingredients at a specific rate and in a specific location within the digestive tract, such as the stomach or the small intestine.
For example, some uncoated, immediate-release tablets are designed to disintegrate quickly in the stomach, whereupon the active ingredients are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream.
For these drugs to work, the active ingredients must be able to withstand exposure to the strong acid found in the stomach before they are absorbed. For other drugs containing active ingredients that would otherwise be broken down by stomach acid, manufacturers have designed tablets and capsules with acid-resistant coatings often called enteric coatings.
Only when these tablets or capsules move from the stomach to the small intestine will the coating dissolve, allowing release of the active ingredients. In addition, many drugs in tablet or capsule form are designed to release their active ingredients even more slowly, over a period of 12 to 24 hours as the tablets or granules from the capsule pass through the small intestine.
This sustained-release also called controlled-release, long-acting and extended-release design provides the convenience of once- or twice-daily dosing and minimizes the variation in the amount of drug in the blood over the course of a day. This design can improve patient compliance and drug effectiveness while decreasing the risk of adverse effects.
Crushing a tablet, opening a capsule or chewing either of these can circumvent many of the protective design features intended to control when and where a drug is released in the digestive tract. Depending on the drug, this can result in overdosing, underdosing or direct toxic injury to the lining of the mouth, stomach or intestines. The Prescrire International review highlighted examples of each of these potentially dangerous circumstances for several commonly used drugs.
For some drugs, crushing, chewing or opening a tablet or capsule before swallowing can cause the rapid absorption of a large amount of the drug, potentially resulting in an overdose.
Digoxin is approved by the Food and Drug Administration FDA to treat heart failure and to slow the heart rate in patients who develop atrial fibrillation, a common abnormal heart rhythm characterized by an irregular and often rapid heart rate.
According to the authors of the Prescrire International review, crushing digoxin tablets before swallowing may increase the risk of other dangerous abnormal heart rhythms. Likewise, the authors noted that opening capsules containing the oral anticoagulant dabigatran PRADAXA will increase the amount of drug that is absorbed, exposing the patient to a greater risk of serious bleeding.
Sustained-release drugs also should not be crushed or chewed before swallowing because doing so will cause the dangerously rapid absorption of a large dose that was intended to be released slowly over many hours. See text box, below , for stories of patients who have been seriously harmed or killed after ingesting tablets that were chewed or crushed. Here are just a few examples published in the medical literature of patients who have been injured or have died after ingesting a sustained-release drug that was chewed or crushed:.
Many shells are made from gelatin. This is because gelatin is a natural, safe, non-allergenic, clean, and economical ingredient. There are other types of shells made of potato starch, a vegetarian shell made from tapioca, and some from fish gelatin.
The most common types are made out of either hard gelatin or soft gelatin. Soft gelatin capsules are more often used when your medicine is of a liquid variety. Storage of hard-gelatin capsules at very low humidity can cause them to turn brittle and If stored at high humidity, the capsules become flaccid. This is why they are usually presented in packaging material such as aluminum strip packing, or foil.
The foil protects the hard-shelled capsule from moisture. Soft gelatin capsules have soft, globular, gelatin shells somewhat thicker than that of hard gelatin capsules.
The gelation is plasticized by the addition of glycerin and other elements to create the softshell. It also may contain a preservative to prevent any fungal growth.
Potato starch is the main ingredient of the transparent, smooth, flexible film, which can be shaped, filled, and packaged just like gelatin. It is safe to swallow capsule covers. They may need to be swallowed whole because:.
According to The Orlando Clinical Research center, it takes approximately 30 minutes for a capsule to dissolve in the body. In general, it typically takes approximately 30 minutes for most medications to dissolve. When a medication is coated in a special coating — which may help protect the drug from stomach acids — it may take longer to reach the bloodstream.
For example, aspirin may dissolve in a matter of minutes, while gelcaps may take much longer, due to their gel coating. When medications move through the human body, they encounter and are processed by different organs before finally being released into the bloodstream.
While this process may sound straightforward, different drugs dissolve at different rates, different formulas, and dosages breakdown differently — and each persons body metabolizes medication in their own unique speed and way.
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