Anais da 43ª Reunião Anual Virtual da SBQ

The use of high intensity sweeteners (HIS) has increased nowadays, due to worries about the consequences of high sugar consumption and weight gain. The active principles of sweeteners are molecules with higher sweetening power than sucrose and a small (or none) caloric contribution. As so, this study aimed to determine some synthetic HIS [saccharin (SAC), cyclamate (CYC), aspartame (ASP), acesulfame-K (ACS) and sucralose (SUC)], and two of the main compounds extracted from Stevia rebaudiana [stevioside (STV) and rebaudioside A (RBD)], used as a natural sweetener, in commercial tabletop sweeteners (n=50).The obtained results were then compared with the information on the product label. Before analysis, solid samples were homogenized, 10,0 mg were weighted in polyethylene tubes and solubilized in 50,0 mL of ultrapure water. For liquid samples, an aliquot of 10,0 μL (approximately 10,0 mg) was transferred to polyethylene tubes and diluted to 50,0 mL. A second dilution was performed to match the concentration of the samples to the calibration curve. Finally, the samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography coupled with sequential mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), using a validated method. Among analyzed samples, 7 (14%) were labeled as natural product, but 3 (43%) of them presented synthetic HIS in their composition. In products which report that they’re a mixture of synthetic and natural sweeteners (n=3, 6% of the samples), the amount of natural sweeteners is much lesser than the synthetic ones. In addition, 8 samples (16%) had informed on their label the content of each HIS in their composition, which has allowed a comparation between the obtained value and the informed one by a t-test. Some irregularities were found, indicating that improvements in quality control of these products are needed.