Miniaturized separation techniques as analytical methods to ensure quality and safety of dietary supplements

Currently, dietary supplements are widely consumed over the world for health-related reasons. Even though, most of these supplements are beneficial for human health, they can also have side effects due to an excess of one of the supplement ingredients or to the presence of contaminants. It is then important to ensure their efficacy and safety. Recently, miniaturized separation techniques have emerged as popular analytical tools in several application fields. Rapid separations, low consumption of both samples and reagents, as well as high efficiency and reduction of production costs are some of the requirements of research laboratories and manufacturing companies. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the electromigration and miniaturized chromatographic methods for the analysis of dietary supplements. Applications for the determination of supplements related molecules including amino acids, peptides, selenium, vitamins, phenethylamines, nanomaterials, polyphenols, biomolecules, other components as contaminants and pharmaceutical drugs are described.