Survey of nutritional supplements for selected illegal anabolic steroids and ephedrine using LC-MS/MS and GC-MS methods, respectively.
Several studies have highlighted that nutritional supplements may contain undeclared substances that are banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)/World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). This paper describes a qualitative liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry detection (LC-MS/MS) method to detect anabolic androgenic steroids (4-androsten-3,17-dion, 4-oestren-3,17-dion, 5alpha-androsten-17beta-ol-3-one, boldenone, nandrolone, nandrolone decanoate, testosterone, and testosterone decanoate) and ephedrine in food supplements. The products are dissolved in methanol and analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The methanolic solution was added to testosterone-d(3), evaporated to dryness, mixed with NaOH and extracted with n-pentane:diethylether (9:1). LC-MS/MS analyses were performed in selected reaction monitoring (SRM) on an ion-trap equipped with an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) probe operating in positive-ion mode. The method was applied to 64 nutritional supplements. A total of 12.5% of the nutritional supplements analysed contained banned substances not declared on the label (anabolic steroids and ephedrine). Detection limits were in the range 1-25 ng g(-1).
Martello
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Università Cattolia del Sacro Cuore, Istituto Medicina Legale, L.go Francecso Vito, 1, Rome I-00168, Italy. simona.martello@hotmail.it
Felli
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Chiarotti
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D045930:Anabolic Agents / Q000032:analysis*; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods; D019587:Dietary Supplements / Q000032:analysis*; D004300:Doping in Sports; D004809:Ephedrine / Q000032:analysis*; D005504:Food Analysis / Q000379:methods; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D045930:Anabolic Agents; D004809:Ephedrine