Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar 16;13(6):908.
doi: 10.3390/foods13060908.

Adulteration of Brain Health (Cognitive, Mood, and Sleep Enhancement) Food Supplements by the Addition of Pharmaceutical Drugs: A Comprehensive Review of Analytical Approaches and Trends

Rafael Paiva  1 , Manuela Correia  1 , Cristina Delerue-Matos  1 , Joana S Amaral  2   3
Affiliations
Review

Adulteration of Brain Health (Cognitive, Mood, and Sleep Enhancement) Food Supplements by the Addition of Pharmaceutical Drugs: A Comprehensive Review of Analytical Approaches and Trends

Rafael Paiva et al. Foods. .

Abstract

In recent years, the consumption of dietary supplements has grown worldwide, particularly in developed regions. However, this growing market has also become a prime target for adulteration practices, with some manufacturers illegally adding pharmaceuticals into plant-based food supplements (PFS) to enhance their effects. While extensive research has focused on detecting adulterant drugs in PFS tailored for improving sexual performance, weight loss, and muscle building, less attention has been given to supplements intended for mood enhancement, sleep aid, and cognitive function (nootropics). Nonetheless, recent reports indicate an increasing level of adulteration within this group of PFS. Therefore, this review aims at providing a comprehensive overview on the adulteration of PFS tailored for brain health, with a focus on the analytical techniques utilized for detection while also presenting data on consumption patterns and the prevalence of reported adulterants. Considering that the detection of such fraudulent practices primarily relies on chromatographic techniques coupled with mass spectrometry (MS), the developments in this field comprising either targeted or untargeted analysis of pharmaceutical adulterants are discussed.

Keywords: analogues; authenticity; dietary supplements; food safety; pharmaceutical drugs; plant food supplements.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Extracted ion chromatograms in matrices spiked with 10 ng/g of sedative-hypnotics. Reprinted from [12] with permission from Taylor and Francis (license number 5747140088630).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Full-scan mass spectrum of peak eluting at 3.9 min in the HR-LCMS Orbitrap analysis of the U-Dream product. Reprinted from [15] under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Silano V., Coppens P., Larrañaga-Guetaria A., Minghetti P., Roth-Ehrang R. Regulations applicable to plant food supplements and related products in the European Union. Food Funct. 2011;2:710–719. doi: 10.1039/c1fo10105f. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wallace E.D., Oberlies N.H., Cech N.B., Kellogg J.J. Detection of adulteration in Hydrastis canadensis (goldenseal) dietary supplements via untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Food Chem. Toxicol. 2018;120:439–447. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2018.07.033. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wallace E.D., Todd D.A., Harnly J.M., Cech N.B., Kellogg J.J. Identification of adulteration in botanical samples with untargeted metabolomics. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 2020;412:4273–4286. doi: 10.1007/s00216-020-02678-6. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Müller L.S., Moreira A.P.L., Muratt D.T., Viana C., De Carvalho L.M. An Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Electrospray Tandem Mass Spectrometric Method for Screening and Simultaneous Determination of Anorexic, Anxiolytic, Antidepressant, Diuretic, Laxative and Stimulant Drugs in Dietary Supplements Marketed for Weight Loss. J. Chromatogr. Sci. 2019;57:528–540. doi: 10.1093/chromsci/bmz025. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Binns C.W., Lee M.K., Lee A.H. Problems and Prospects: Public Health Regulation of Dietary Supplements. Annu. Rev. Public Health. 2018;39:403–420. doi: 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040617-013638. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources