LAUSR

BACKGROUND Nutraceuticals, NTC, as honey and tablets with herbal extract are subjected to adulteration. OBJECTIVE For NTCs claimed to enhance sexual performance, synthetic drugs (sildenafil, tadalafil, avanafil, vardenafil and dapoxetine) are common adulterants, so they were selected to be simultaneously analyzed in the current study. Natural aphrodisiacs (icariin and yohimbine) are claimed to be present in many fake NTCs, so they were also included in the study. METHODS In order to achieve the target of the current study, three liquid chromatographic methods with different unique detectors were developed and validated. RESULTS High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection enables rapid and reliable determination of natively fluorescence yohimbine, tadalafil vardenafil and dapoxetine and it is the first report to analyze these compounds as adulterants in counterfeited NTC. Although diode array detector (DAD) enables the analysis of the seven adulterants, fluorescence detector (FLD) shows better sensitivity and selectivity with lower limits of quantitation and detection (LOQ and LOD). On the other hand, ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) offers the advantages of peak identity confirmation, and it is of comparable sensitivity and the selectivity with HPLC-FD. CONCLUSION One or more of these synthetic drugs were found in the analyzed NTCs while natural aphrodisiacs were absent. HIGHLIGHTS Aphrodisiac nutraceuticals, NTCs, were analyzed for adulterants; Five aphrodisiac synthetic drugs (adulterants) were analyzed; two natural claimed aphrodisiac were analyzed in these NTCs; UFLC-MS, HPLC-DAD/FLD were compared for illicit NTCs analysis; all NTCs show synthetic aphrodisiac presence with absence of natural ones.