Instrumental analysis of popular botanical products in the U.S. market

A large number of botanicals are used in various products including beverages, dietary supplements, foods, healthcare and personal care products. Dietary supplements and functional foods are among the most rapidly growingsectors in the food and personal care products industry. The demand for safe and effective dietary supplement in the US market has grown exponentially and consumers, the government, and the media, which has been a major force in the market, have each begun to seriously question the quality of dietary supplements. Given the consumer-driven nature of the dietary supplements industry and the regulatory framework in the US, the quality control standards for botanical products are still found lacking and/or unevenly implemented, despite major gains achieved by the industry as the private sector seeks to improve quality and meet governmental expectations under the current policy of largely self-regulation. While major accomplishments continue to be achieved by industry to ensure improved quality of the product including packaging, GMP issues, improved labeling clarity, the addition of product expiration dates and claims, and more, for those standardized botanical extracts, many problems still remain. In this paper, we evaluated the quality of popular botanical extracts including artichoke, bilberry, soy any tribulus using HPLC fingerprinting, LC-MS analyses, and other analytical techniques and focus purposefully not on the notable gains in overall quality that have been achieved in the botanical and herbal industry over the last decade but on specific issues relating to the natural product content in botanicals, particularly relative to the products own label claim and standardization. The improvement in quality control and detection of adulteration is also discussed.