Abstract
Dietary supplements of botanical origin are increasingly consumed due to their content of plant constituents with potential benefits on health and wellness. Among those constituents, terpenes are gaining attention because of their diverse biological activities (anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, geroprotective, and others). While most of the existing analytical methods have focused on establishing the terpenic fingerprint of some plants, typically by gas chromatography, methods capable of quantifying representative terpenes in herbal preparations and dietary supplements with combined high sensitivity and precision, simplicity, and high throughput are still necessary. In this study, we have explored the utility of capillary liquid chromatography (CapLC) with diode array detection (DAD) for the determination of different terpenes, namely limonene, linalool, farnesene, α-pinene, and myrcene. An innovative method is proposed that can be applied to quantify the targets at concentration levels as low as 0.006 mg per gram of sample with satisfactory precision, and a total analysis time <30 min per sample. The reliability of the proposed method has been tested by analyzing different dietary supplements of botanical origin, namely three green coffee extract-based products, two fat burnings containing Citrus aurantium (bitter orange), and an herbal preparation containing lime and leaves of orange trees.
Highlights
Today, a wide variety of products are available intended to supplement the diet with the idea of promoting health and wellness
We demonstrated that capillary liquid chromatography (CapLC) is a valuable tool for estimating the content of terpenes of resins obtained from different trees
Taking advantage of its high sensitivity, in the present study we report for the first time the application of CapLC to the quantification of representative terpenes in dietary supplements
Summary
A wide variety of products are available intended to supplement the diet with the idea of promoting health and wellness. Supplements elaborated with similar ingredients may contain highly variable amounts of active compounds, depending on the plant sources and processes used during their production [4]. For these reasons, increasing attention is being paid to control the quality and efficacy of botanic dietary supplements through the analysis of their bioactive components [3,5]. Adulteration and counterfeiting (such as the use of prohibited additives and incorrect botanical or geographical declaration) are frauds commonly detected in dietary supplements. Adequate analytical methods are required to detect such manipulations [6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
