COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BY HPLC-UV AND CAPILLARY
ELECTROPHORESIS OF DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS FOR WEIGHT
LOSS
AMELIA TERO-VESCAN1, CAMIL-EUGEN VARI2*, SILVIA IMRE3, BIANCA-EUGENIA ŐSZ2, CRISTINA FILIP1, GABRIEL HANCU4
University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, 38 Gheorghe Marinescu Street, Târgu Mureș, 540139, Romania
1Biochemistry and Chemistry of Environmental Factors Department
2Farmacology and Clinical Pharmacy Department
3Organic Chemistry Department
4Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department
*corresponding author: camil.vari@yahoo.fr
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Abstract:
The legislation for dietary supplements (DS) is extremely permissive although some of these supplements may contain
pharmacologically active, alleged vegetal compounds such as caffeine (CF), yohimbine (Y) or ephedrine (EPH), and the lack
of strict control raises the question of contamination with prohibited substances in the European Union. This paper proposes a
comparative analysis of weight loss DS by two separation techniques, capillary electrophoresis and high performance liquid
chromatography with UV detection. The results obtained by the two methods show a higher dose of CF than stated on the
label, as these DS contain CF pure substance and CF-containing extracts (matrix), while for Y the determined content is
lower than the amount specified on the label. The two methods give comparable results in the analysis of DS, any statistically
significant differences can be related to the uniformity of the analysed samples.

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