TOWARDS A RAPID QUALITY CONTROL METHOD FOR HOODIA GORDONII RAW MATERIAL AND PRODUCTS

Abstract

Hoodia gordonii is a spiny succulent plant belonging to the Apocynaceae family and is indigenous to South Africa and Namibia. It is currently used as the major herbal ingredient in slimming products. Due to its limited geographical distribution and the need for a permit to cultivate and export raw material, the degree of adulteration of commercially available products is very high. Some of these products contain small quantities of real Hoodia blended with Opuntia species (prickly-pear), sawdust, starch, and other materials used as diluents. There is a definite need for a rapid method of analysis to confirm authenticity of raw materials and to determine whether the alleged active ingredient (P57) is present in various products. Several methods currently used to authenticate and validate Hoodia raw material, such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and microscopy, are laborious and require skilled personnel. Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy requires minimum sample preparation and does not need highly skilled operators once the spectrometer has been calibrated. NIR spectroscopy was used to determine whether adulterants could be detected in Hoodia formulations. Chemometric analysis of the spectral data revealed that common adulterants such as Aloe and Opuntia species were easily distinguished from H. gordonii. High performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) provided a fingerprint for H. gordonii raw material and was subsequently used to establish that several Hoodia products did contain authentic H. gordonii. NIR spectroscopy and HPTLC were used successfully to aid in the quality control of H. gordonii raw material and products.