Detection of synthetic lipid‐lowering adulterants in herbal products using high‐performance thin‐layer chromatography

Abstract Adulterating herbal medicine with undeclared synthetic drugs is a worldwide problem that seriously threatens human health. To detect such illicit and not labeled synthetic hypolipidemic substances in herbal medicines, an analytical method to simultaneously identify and quantify atorvastatin (ATV) calcium, simvastatin (SIM), gemfibrozil (GEM), fenofibrate (FEN) belonging to two different classes of drugs (statins and fibrates) was developed based on high‐performance thin‐layer chromatography. The method consisted of Silica Gel G60 F 254 precoated aluminum plate as stationary phase and toluene: ethyl acetate: formic acid (7:3:0.3, v/v/v) as optimized mobile phase. The densitometric evaluation wavelength was optimized at 254 nm. The Rf values of ATV, SIM, GEM, and FEN were 0.157, 0.268, 0.691, and 0.852, respectively. The linearity range is between 100–1500 ng/band for ATV and FEN and 200–3000 ng/band for SIM and GEM, respectively. The accuracy was found to be in the range of 97%–105%. The relative standard deviation of precision and robustness was found to be < 5%. However, the five screened market samples did not show the presence of adulteration of the above drugs. This method for the simultaneous determination of four drugs may be successfully employed to screen synthetic hypolipidemics as adulterants in herbal products and dietary supplements.