The active ingredients alone may be difficult to consume, or even dangerous! The inactives make up the pill, or the cream, and could be preservatives, emulsifiers, fragrances, texturizers, or other things.

These ingredients are stabilizers, bacteria-fighters, and colors. These ingredients, for the most part, all play a part in a product. Stabilizers....these are binders. they help to keep medicenes together, like in pills, tablets, etc. makes medication easier to swallow. Bacteria-fighters....like alcohol, help to keep bacteria out of medications and gives a longer shelf life. Coloring....makes products attractive to the human eye. its what makes products sell. Inactive ingredients are necessary in most products.

There's another ingredient that has not been mentioned. It's stearic acid, or magnesum sterate. These are two terms for basically the same thing. It is made from oil (either animal fat or vegetable) and it's combined with the product to coat it and speed it through the manufacturer's machinery. A majority of stearic acid is made from cotton seed oil. This does not sound too bad at first glance. But it when you consider that cotton fields recieve a very high burden of pesticides, and that some of those pesticides get into our medicine through this method, it's not as innocent as it is portrayed. For those who don't take many medications or supplements, it's not such a big deal, but if you do, you stand a good chance of getting a big dose of these chemicals.

"An excipient is an inactive substance used as a carrier for the active ingredients of a medication. In many cases, an "active" substance (such as aspirin) may not be easily administered and absorbed by the human body; in such cases the substance in question may be dissolved into or mixed with an excipient. Excipients are also sometimes used to bulk up formulations that contain very potent active ingredients, to allow for convenient and accurate dosage. In addition to their use in the single-dosage quantity, excipients can be used in the manufacturing process to aid in the handling of the active substance concerned. Depending on the route of administration, and form of medication, different excipients may be used. For oral administration tablets and capsules are used. Suppositories are used for rectal administration. Often, once an active ingredient has been purified, it cannot stay in purified form for long. In many cases it will denature, fall out of solution, or stick to the sides of the container. To stabilize the active ingredient, excipients are added, ensuring that the active ingredient stays "active", and, just as importantly, stable for a sufficiently long period of time that the shelf-life of the product makes it competitive with other products. Thus, the formulation of excipients in many cases is considered a trade secret. Pharmaceutical codes require that all ingredients in drugs, as well as their chemical decomposition products are identified and guaranteed to be safe. For this reason, excipients are only used when absolutely necessary and in the smallest amounts possible." "1 Types of excipients 1.1 Antiadherents 1.2 Binders 1.3 Coatings 1.3.1 Changing the dissolution rates of active species 1.4 Disintegrants 1.5 Fillers and diluents 1.6 Flavours 1.7 Colours 1.8 Glidants 1.9 Lubricants 1.10 Preservatives 1.11 Sorbents 1.12 Sweeteners" Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excipient