Acarbose

About This Product

Acarbose is a pseudotetrasaccharide of microbial origin, produced by fermentation of Actinoplanes species and supplied as a white to off-white amorphous powder, freely soluble in water. It is an established oral antidiabetic active pharmaceutical ingredient. Its mechanism is unusual among diabetes medicines in being local rather than systemic. Dietary starch and sucrose must be broken down to monosaccharides by alpha-glucosidase enzymes in the brush border of the small intestine before they can be absorbed. Acarbose is a competitive inhibitor of those enzymes, and because it is barely absorbed itself it acts almost entirely within the intestinal lumen. Digestion is slowed rather than prevented, so carbohydrate absorption is spread over a longer stretch of intestine and a longer period, which blunts the post-prandial glucose peak without causing hypoglycaemia in the way an insulin secretagogue can. The characteristic side effects follow directly from the same mechanism: undigested carbohydrate reaching the colon is fermented by gut bacteria, producing flatulence and bloating, which is dose-limiting for some patients. It is used in oral antidiabetic formulations, post-prandial glucose control, combination therapies and in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Bio Green Chem supplies acarbose to pharmacopoeial specification on assay, related substances, water, residual solvents, microbiology and heavy metals, against regulatory documentation.