Nutraceutical Products—State-of-the-Art for Sample Preparation in Pesticide Residues Analysis

Abstract

Nutraceutical products are plant-based materials primarily valued for their possible medicinal or therapeutic properties. According to their “natural” origin they are often perceived as being safe; however, for the prevention of economic losses, pesticides may be used against pest, mold and insects causing plant damage. Bearing in mind that a nutraceutical is a concentrated form of the plant, pesticides could be found in the final product in possibly worrying concentration. Nutraceutical products and dried herb materials typically represent very complex matrices for pesticide residue analysis, therefore a proper sample preparation protocol with appropriate clean-up steps is necessary prior to the analysis. Hence, this article gives an overview of pesticide residue analyses in nutraceuticals and provides the state of the art for sample preparation techniques applied for different types of nutraceuticals.

Keywords:

• Nutraceuticals
• pesticide residues
• QuEChERS
• sample preparation

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the Academy of Sciences (VEGA, project No. 1/0503/14) and by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-0797-11. AP is also grateful for the Program for support of young researchers and for the STU Program for support of excellent teams of young researchers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the Academy of Sciences (VEGA, project No. 1/0503/14) and by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-0797-11. AP is also grateful for the Program for support of young researchers and for the STU Program for support of excellent teams of young researchers.