HPLC detection of dehydroepiandrosterone in food additives by using normal phase HPLC

A normal-phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) method was developed for the determination of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in food supplements. We have used an HPLC 200 (Perkin Elmer, USA) with a spectrophotometric detector LC-785A (Bioanalytical systems, USA) and a thermostat (Perkin Elmer, Waltham, MA, USA). We have chosen isocratic HPLC elution, column: LiChrospher (100 DIOL 250 x 4 mm х 5 μm), mobile phase: acetonitrile: water = 98: 2 v/v, flow rate: 1 ml/min. and detection at λ = 202 nm. We have found that this method allows fast and selective qualitative and quantitative determination of DHEA in pharmaceutical products