Abstract
During the past five years, the literature has tended to prove the occurrence of “natural benzodiazepines” in tissues and biological fluids of non-medicated humans. Several have been identified but very few papers deal with their quantitation in biological material. We present here a method for the specific and sensitive measurement of serum levels of diazepam, N-desmethyldiazepam and oxazepam by gas chromatography with selected-ion monitoring mass spectrometry in twenty human volunters without medication. Diazepam was found over the whole population, in the range 7.3–32.0 pg/ml, identical in males and females. The other two were present in only some individuals (1.0–7.6 pg/ml for N-desmethyldiazepam and 2.0–13.0 pg/ml for oxazepam). The origin (endogenous, dietary or microbial) of these substances is still to be elucidated.
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