Curcumin is a naturally occurring substance with various pharmacological activities. It has\nnot been developed as a drug because of its low bioavailability due to its low solubility and absorption.\nPiperine is a natural enhancer that is popularly used to increase the absorption of curcumin in oral\napplications; however, it has not been applied for transdermal curcumin delivery. This study aims to\ndevelop a transdermal curcumin delivery system using piperine as a skin permeation enhancer in the\nform of composite double-layer membrane; the upper layer consisted of curcumin and the lower layer\nconsisted of piperine. The amount of curcumin was fixed, but the amount of piperine varied at three\nlevels from 1.96% to 7.41%. The composite membrane had moderate mechanical strength (15â??22 MPa)\nwith a good swelling degree (~435%). From an in vitro skin permeation study, piperine had the\neffect to increase the permeation of curcumin. The permeation rate was related to the amount of\npiperine. The composite membrane containing piperine at 7.41% could increase the permeation rate of\ncurcumin by about 1.89 times compared with non-piperine contained membrane. Bacterially-derived\ncellulose containing curcumin and piperine may have the potential for transdermal curcumin delivery\nin order to improve curcuminâ??s bioavailability.
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