D.I.Y. liposomal supplements, quercetin

[Sherlock]

Has anybody tried making liposomal quercetin, for better absorption and possibly better delivery to where it's needed?

As a simple example, here is a video on making liposomal vit C:

(you mix lecithin granules with water in a blender, add dissolved vit C and then use a supersonic cleaner to induce formation of the liposomes)

One a much more complicated level, here's a 2006 FFT:
Liposomal Quercetin Efficiently Suppresses Growth of Solid Tumors in Murine Models
http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/12/10/3193.full

Clinical trials exploring different schedules of administration of quercetin have been hampered by its extreme water insolubility. To overcome this limitation, this study is aimed to develop liposomal quercetin and investigate its distribution in vivo

that's the pegylated kind

the mixtures of lecithin/cholesterol/PEG 4000/quercetin in 13:4:1:6 weight ratio were dissolved in chloroform/methanol (3:1, v/v) and evaporated to dryness under reduced pressure in a rotary evaporator. The dried lipid films were sonicated in 5% glucose solution at constant container followed by concentrated and lyophilized.

I wonder if I could use a speaker under the container in lieu of buying a sonic cleaner?

small unilamellar liposomes in our studies and in a size range of 130 ± 20... nm

so the diameter of the final product might matter a lot... maybe

 

[Tammy]

Is it just a matter of the liquid needing to be vibrated?.........could you use a vibrator device (not trying to be funny)........you know like a .........god.....can't think of the name of it.......like a back massager? Does it have to be vibrated or sonicated.......at a certain frequency or speed ? sorry I can't think of words right now! I probably sound like an uneducated housewife trying to talk to her husband about physics.

 

[Sherlock]

Is it just a matter of the liquid needing to be vibrated?.........could you use a vibrator device (not trying to be funny)........you know like a .........god.....can't think of the name of it.......like a back massager? Does it have to be vibrated or sonicated.......at a certain frequency or speed ? sorry I can't think of words right now! I probably sound like an uneducated housewife trying to talk to her husband about physics.

I could only guess that the frequency is important.

Here is a way-too-long and boring video:

but he does show the mixture getting thicker in the sonic cleaner. The theory is that the vibration is necessary in order for the phospholipid molecules from the lecithin to arrange themselves into the phospholipid bilayer which then forms the spherical liposomes.

Liposomes do form in nature without any sonic waves Just as in every cell we are made of.

There are well known and proven drugs (like Doxil) that are successfully made with liposomes. So it's not a looney concept. But does this DIY process actually work? One commenter there points out that he measures the pH of the vit C, the pH of the lecithin and then the pH of the finished product. He writes:

Here are my results so far.
12g of ascorbic acid in 1/2cup distilled water = 1.9 pH
36g of lecithin in 1 cup distilled water = 6.0 pH
Combined/blended together = 3.0 pH
After ultrasonic cleaner step = 3.0 pH
If it was truly encapsulating the ascorbic acid wouldn't the pH be closer to 6.0?

But then I'd ask: if it's not actually working, then why does the mixture get thick?

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Here is the very complex way that they do it in industry:

which seems to be the same way described in the full text article cited above.

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OOOOOOHHHHHHHH..... I just thought of a possible answer to my own question above: the mixture might be getting thick because it is assembling into spherical structures (or even sheets), but that doesn't mean that the vit C is actually inside any liposomes. It could be like ending up with a bucket of ping pong balls and sand, but little of the sand is actually inside the ping pong balls. That's explained in the manufacturing video at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGz-qDE3Go4&feature=player_detailpage#t=52s