The adulteration of foods and dietary supplements with steroids has been well attested and has the potential to be dangerous owing to various possible side-effects. Therefore, detecting the presence of steroids in various health food products has become increasingly important. The purpose of this study was to monitor illegally adulterated health food products by applying multiple reaction monitoring techniques to tandem liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Various food and supplement samples advertised for the treatment of arthritis, bone ache and joint pain were collected over a 4-year period (2010-13) from local and online Korean sources. The method was validated based on limits of quantification of 0.5-15.0 ng g(-1) and recoveries in spiked solid samples of 81-119%. Approximately 30% of the tested samples were identified as having been illicitly adulterated. Six compounds were observed overall, including dexamethasone (45.1%), cotrisone-21-aceteate and prednisone-21-acetate (16.2%), and betamethasone (14.4%), and found in some samples in high concentrations.
Keywords: LC-MS/MS; adulterant; illegal dietary supplement; steroid.