HPTLC as a screening method to control the quality of botanical raw material and detect adulterants

In the last years, the use of food supplements containing botanicals has increased significantly due to the expected health benefits by consumers, the general belief that natural is always safe, and the relative low cost. However, taking into consideration the high number of products present on the market and the complex matrix of botanicals, the quality control (from raw material to the commercial product) is quite difficult but is critical to guarantee the consumers’ safety. One of the main issues in the evaluation of food supplement safety is the identification of possible illicit addition of active molecules, that is particularly frequent in parallel markets (internet, gym, etc.). The control of botanicals requires suitable methods capable to characterize the raw material and identify bioactive compounds having physiological (or toxicological) relevance. The High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) is a simple, flexible, relatively inexpensive and efficient separation technique for both qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis. The aim of this work is the description of possible applications of HPTLC in the quality control of food supplements, from authentication of plant materials to identification of adulterants and counterfeits. HPTLC has demonstrated to be a fast and simple method for the characterization of different Citrus species and the identification of steroid hormones and active amines (such as ephedrine) in food supplements.