Qualitative and quantitative determination of the effective components of the plants in different herbal slimming products in Turkey by HPLC

Abstract

Obesity is a serious disease that can be due to genetic and environmental reasons and is defined by the World Health Organization as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. There is an increasing trend towards herbal slimming products in obesity treatment. The quality control analysis of these products is important for public health. In this study, new, simple, and sensitive high performance liquid chromatography methods were developed for qualitative and quantitative determination of arbutin, hydroquinone, ursolic acid, chlorogenic acid, epigallocatechin gallate, epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and catechin in eleven herbal slimming products in Turkey containing Camellia sinensis, Ilex paraguariensis, and Calluna vulgaris. The intra- and interday precisions, stated as the relative standard deviation, were less than 2% and accuracy, based on relative error, was less than 10%. The limits of detection and quantification for arbutin and hydroquinone were 0.80 and 2.40 μg/mL and for the other compounds were 0.30 and 0.90 μg/mL, respectively. The methods developed can be used for routine quality control analysis of these effective compounds in different herbal slimming products.