An active ingredient (AI) is the substance in a pharmaceutical drug or a pesticide that is biologically active. The similar terms active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and bulk active are also used in medicine, and the term active substance may be used for pesticide formulations. Some medications and pesticide products may contain more than one active ingredient. The traditional word for the API is pharmacon or pharmakon (from Greek: (φάρμακον), adapted from pharmacos) which originally denoted a magical substance or drug.
A dosage form : the API, which is the drug itself; and an excipient, which is the substance of the tablet, or the liquid the API is suspended in, or other material that is pharmaceutically inert. Drugs are chosen primarily for their active ingredients. Because homeopathic products no longer have any biologically active ingredients, their list of ingredients refers to the original ingredients used in their preparation and the finished product no longer contains any active ingredients.
Read more about Active Ingredient: Pharmaceuticals, Herbal Medicine
Famous quotes containing the words active and/or ingredient:
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)
“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)