Date of Award

7-2013

Type

Thesis

Major

Biology

Degree Type

BS

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Jennifer Newbrey

Second Advisor

Julie Ballenger

Third Advisor

Cindy Ticknor

Abstract

Many Americans are either currently taking, or have recently taken, non-prescription dietary supplements. These supplements claim to help prevent or relieve any number of ailments, but are not regulated by any governing body. One common use of dietary supplements is to aid in weight loss. Synephrine, the most abundant active component in bitter orange (Citrus aurantium L.) extracts, became a regular ingredient in weight loss supplements after the 2004 ephedra ban. The initial goal of this research was to use reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the synephrine content of five dietary supplements and compare to the reported content on the label. However, due to difficulties I encountered with the HPLC instrument, I instead used NanoDrop Spectrophotometry to analyze synephrine content. This technique was not as precise as HPLC, but data were obtained that indicated the supplements contained significantly less synephrine than the standard (1-Way ANOVA, F42.1=60.042, P=

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