A chitosan-based cinnamaldehyde-raspberry ketone integrated carrier architecture for oral delivery toward mild metabolic regulation.

Obesity-related metabolic imbalance represents a growing health concern, and increasing attention has been directed toward mild metabolic regulatory interventions based on plant-derived phytochemicals before progression to more severe metabolic disorders. Raspberry ketone (RK), a naturally occurring phytochemical with reported metabolic regulatory activity, exhibits limited gastrointestinal accessibility due to its high crystallinity and poor aqueous solubility. In this study, a chitosan-based cinnamaldehyde-raspberry ketone integrated carrier system (CS-CA/RK) was developed as a surfactant-free oral delivery platform for mild metabolic regulation. The resulting CS-CA/RK system formed a stabilized interfacial carrier architecture with improved dispersion stability and gastrointestinal compatibility for RK. Structural characterization by FTIR, XRD, TEM, and DOSY NMR supported the formation of a unified CS-CA-associated framework and the structural confinement of RK within the carrier architecture. The CS-CA/RK system exhibited enhanced gastrointestinal stability and improved oral bioavailability compared with bulk RK. In a high-fat diet-induced metabolic imbalance model, CS-CA/RK attenuated body weight gain, adipose expansion, hepatic steatosis, and glucose-insulin dysregulation. These results demonstrate that integrating metabolically active phytochemical components into a carbohydrate-based carrier architecture enables the construction of a phytochemical-integrated oral delivery platform that combines structural stabilization with complementary metabolic regulatory functionality within a single system.