Rapid identification of illegal synthetic adulterants in herbal anti-diabetic medicines using near infrared spectroscopy

•A NIR procedure to detect illicit adulterants in herbal medicines was constructed.•This rapid, nondestructive procedure can reach an accuracy level over 80%.•The strategy for RCCM threshold determination has been improved.

We created a rapid detection procedure for identifying herbal medicines illegally adulterated with synthetic drugs using near infrared spectroscopy. This procedure includes a reverse correlation coefficient method (RCCM) and comparison of characteristic peaks. Moreover, we made improvements to the RCCM based on new strategies for threshold settings. Any tested herbal medicine must meet two criteria to be identified with our procedure as adulterated. First, the correlation coefficient between the tested sample and the reference must be greater than the RCCM threshold. Next, the NIR spectrum of the tested sample must contain the same characteristic peaks as the reference. In this study, four pure synthetic anti-diabetic drugs (i.e., metformin, gliclazide, glibenclamide and glimepiride), 174 batches of laboratory samples and 127 batches of herbal anti-diabetic medicines were used to construct and validate the procedure. The accuracy of this procedure was greater than 80%. Our data suggest that this protocol is a rapid screening tool to identify synthetic drug adulterants in herbal medicines on the market.

Graphical abstractA NIR procedure for the rapid, nondestructive identification of herbal medicines containing illicit synthetic drugs was constructed during this study.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide