Quality Evaluation of Dietary Supplements for Weight Loss Based on Garcinia cambogia

Food supplements of plant origin for weight control are increasingly being demanded by consumers as a way to promote good health. Among them, those based on Garcinia cambogia (GCFS) are widely commercialized considering their bioactive properties, mainly due to (-)-hydroxycitric acid ((-)-HCA). However, recently, controversy has arisen over their safety; thus, further research and continuous monitoring of their composition is required. Hence, in this work, a multi-analytical approach was followed to determine not only (-)-HCA but also other constituents of 18 GCFS, which could be used as quality markers to detect fraudulent practices in these samples. Discrepancies between the declared (-)-HCA content and that experimentally determined were detected by LC–UV in 33% of the samples. Moreover, GC–MS analyses of GCFS allowed the detection of different compounds not present in G. cambogia fruits and not declared on supplement labels, probably related to heat exposure or to the addition of excipients or other extracts. This multi-analytical methodology is shown to be advantageous to address different fraudulent practices affecting the quality of these supplements.This work is part of the I + D + I projects AGL2016-80475-R funded by the Spanish MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE, and PID2019-106405GB-I00 financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033. The authors thank the Comunidad de Madrid and European funding from FSE and FEDER programs (project S2018/BAA-4393, AVANSECAL-II-CM) and the Universidad del Cauca (501100005682) of Colombia (project ID-4806) for their financial support. A. Mena-García was funded by a predoctoral contract (DIN2019-010849/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universitie