Data Analysis of Illegally Adding Chemical Substances in 84 Batches of Slimming Health Foods

OBJECTIVE To detect 7 chemical substances(fenfluramine hydrochloride, phenolphthalein, caffeine, furosemide, sibutramine hydrochloride, N,N-bis-desmethylsibutramine and N-monodesmethylsibutramine) that may be illegally added in slimming health foods by HPLC-MS/MS, and to draw the distribution map of illegally added chemical substances, according to the data analysis results of 84 batches of slimming health foods tested, in order to provide data support of the regulatory authorities. METHODS HPLC-MS/MS was used with Waters XBridge C₁₈(4.6 mm×250 mm, 5 μm) as the column; eluted with a gradient of 0.02 mol·L^-1 ammonium acetate solution (containing 0.4% glacial acetic acid) and methanol. The flow rate was 0.3 mL·min^-1; ESI positive and negative ion mode, full-scale scanning of primary and secondary mass spectrometry were used. HPLC was used for quantitative, HPLC-MS/MS was used for qualitative. RESULTS Illegally added sibutramine hydrochloride, phenolphthalein and furosemide were found in 62 batches of the 84 batches. Distribution graph of intake per time showed that each intake of sibutramine hydrochloride was concentrated in 0-10 mg and 20-40 mg; each intake of phenolphthalein was concentrated in 0-10 mg, with a median of 11.70 mg; each intake of furosemide was concentrated in 0-20 mg, with a median of 12.01 mg. CONCLUSION At present, the illegally added chemical substances in slimming health foods are more common with sibutramine hydrochloride, phenolphthalein and furosemide, and the distribution of the added amount is not uniform. There are major security risks.