| Tea pigments are the bioactive natural products, which occupy about30%-50%of the extract of green tea. A large number of experimental and clinical studies shown that tea pigments possesses the bioactivities including antioxidant, regulating lipids, lowering blood pressure, decreasing blood sugar, and anti-cancer. Tea pigments have been achieved extensive attention in nutrition and medical fields worldwide. But the bioavailability of tea pigments is low because they are high polar and un-stable compounds in aerobic environment in vivo. Therefore, it is necessary to improve tea pigments’bioavailability to maintain a steady blood concentration and enhance the pharmacodynamic effect.The present study investigates the preparation of microcapsules of tea pigments by chitosan-sodium alginate encapsulation system at normal atmospheric temperature. The loading capacity, encapsulation efficiency and dissolution release in vitro were measured. The tea pigments-chitosan-microcapsules with high sphericity, smooth surface and ideal diameter were obtained. The loading capacity and the encapsulation efficiency of the microcapsule reached20.2-27.1%and39.7-54.4%, respectively.99.7%of the microcapsules can dissolve in the solution of pH6.8within24hours. However, less than10%can dissolve in the solution of pH1.0up to24hours. The preparation procedure is feasible and easy to operate, and the product has the potential to develop into a commercial product since it has excellent site-specific delivery ability, which meets the current clinical standard.A high lipid model of animals was chosen to investigate the effect of the tea pigments-chitosan-microcapsules on lowering lipids using Purebred New Zealand rabbits. All the detection values of CHO, TG, HDL-C and LDL-C in serum from the rabbits showed tea pigments-chitosan-microcapsules possessed excellent effect on regulating blood lipid. The results indicate the potential of the tea pigments-chitosan-microcapsules in clinical application. |
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