Investigating a Vitamin D Delivery Toothpaste Using a Penetration Enhancer Compound

Abstract

Expanding in the oral care business, being passionately driven by innovative and scientific products, functional toothpaste has recently become more popular for functionality, variety, and efficacy. Many new types of toothpaste are commercially manufactured with diverse fragrances, colors, probiotics, and pharmaceutical ingredients to enhance the functionalities of toothpaste. Our study attempted to create a toothpaste formulation that might facilitate the intraoral delivery of vitamin D3 into the bloodstream. Simply brushing our teeth with toothpaste should be easy to take the essential vitamin regularly. In this study, an emulsion-based toothpaste mixed with an azone compound and sodium dodecyl sulfate as penetration enhancers blended thoroughly with other ingredients and then with vitamin D. Multiple toothpaste characteristic tests were performed, such as abrasiveness, scratchiness, spreadability, pH, foaming, cleaning, and antibacterial strength with our vitamin D toothpaste, and compared with those of other commercial brand toothpaste. To confirm the intraoral delivery of vitamin D through the oral cavity, an earthworm transport study and TEER value test were conducted using L. terrestris skin. Our data demonstrated the high feasibility of intraoral delivery of vitamin D based on those two skin studies with various experimental support; our vitamin D toothpaste had comparable characteristics with other commercial toothpaste for cleaning functionality.