Differentiation of Five Commercially Available Triphala churnas of an Ayurvedic Formulation by Elemental Fingerprint

Abstract

Introduction: Triphala churna (TPC) is one of the well known Ayurvedic powdered preparations of Indian System of Medicine and is used in the treatment of various diseases. Elemental pattern of TPC was developed in order to investigate the identity and quality of commercial TPC drugs. Method: Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used for the quantitative determination of ten essential and trace elements in five marketed samples of Triphala churna. The concentration patterns of these elements were deciphered by multivariate statistical analysis such as hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), fuzzy c-means (FCM) and k-means (KM) cluster analysis. Results: The elemental concentrations ranged from 1.3 mg/kg (Cr, TPC3) to 14220 mg/kg (K, TPC4). The elemental fingerprint of Triphala churna was established based on three churnas viz. TPC1, TPC3 and TPC5, which were found in one cluster with a very high degree of similarity by KM, FCM and HCA techniques. Conclusion: Based on the results, the graphical pattern of elements detected in these samples can be considered as elemental fingerprint of Triphala churna and can be used for authentication and/or to determine the quality of commercial TPC drugs.

A Quantitative Approach to Estimate both Essential and Non-essential Elements in Some Commercial Samples of Triphala churna by using WD-XRF Spectrometry

“…4 However, the results obtained in the present study by WD-XRF spectrometry were cross checked with available ICP-MS data ( Table 2). 3 The Cu mean values determined by the WD-XRF method was slightly higher than that determined by the ICP-MS method with good RSD (3-28%) and only TPC1 sample was noticed with a higher ICP value with 28% RSD. A significant difference was observed for Zn i.e.…”

“…The authors express their gratitude to the Vice Chancellor of GITAM University, Visakhapatnam, for encouragement and facilitating necessary *published data 3 ; SD: standard deviation; RSD: relative standard deviation congenial environment to carry out research work. Also, the authors thank the Head, Laboratory X-ray Crystallography, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR), Hyderabad, India, for extending their constant support.…”

“…Triphala churna is a mixture of three dried fruits (Haritaki, Bibhitaki and Amalaki) in equal proportions (1:1:1) and a variety of therapeutic applications have been described in ISM. 3…”