Quercetin solubility in water is very low and this does not enable direct in vivo (animal) testing. Hence, a solid dispersion of quercetin with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was developed to prepare an injectable formulation of water-soluble quercetin.
The optimized formulation provided a 20,000-fold increase in quercetin solubility. This formulation was tested on conventional and spontaneously hypertensive rats; it lowered their blood pressure in both short-and long-term basis.
Pharmacokinetic data are also provided.