Comment · Thu, February 5, 2015 · Ceretropic
Fake herbal supplements. How to know?
Original post in this thread
NellucEcon · 34 points
A news article about the prevalence of fake herbal supplements recently made it to the front page of reddit. I couldn't find the original, so here is a similar article:
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/news/20150203/retailers-fake-supplements
My question is, how do we verify the quality of products? Single drug compounds are probably easier to verify for a number of reasons. For example, adrafinil is a yellowish-white powder, tastes like death, produces an unmistakable urine odor, and has substantial subjective effects in responders. Of course this does not rule out cutting agents that might make dosing hard or impurities that could be unhealthy. In addition, this method works only for those drugs so obviously characterized. Compounds without a distinctive flavor or appearance would be difficult to identify. And compounds whose effects are subtle would be difficult to gauge by subjective experience.
All these problems are more severe for herbal supplements because they typically lack distinctive characteristics, particularly when crushed up and placed in a capsule. And most of their effects are subtle. And lab tests for authenticity require DNA testing.…
What they were answering
desexmachina · 5 points
http://www.chemicalize.org/structure/#!mol=adrafinil&source=fp
If you look at the pKa of Adrafinil, there are 5 different chemical structures based on the attachment of Hydrogen. Those ionization, or pKa curves will determine how easily absorbed it is in the GI tract. I'm no chemist expert, but there's gotta be a way to measure out some pKa difference between the 4 different batches you've got. If you take equal parts distilled water and adrafinil by weight, mix them and then take a pH strip to it, then you might be able to see if there is some slight difference between them.
My little thread on pKa
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
Now we are talking! This is the kind of info I need to figure this shit out. If it is not the diastereoisomer issue, is has to be an absorption issue. The pKa differences of the powder would be the most likely candidate for that. I will workup a few tests to measure the pH of the various powders.
Thanks!
That is also why some customers like the light powder, while others don't. GI tract pH is so variable in the population. This could totally be the issue here!