DETERMINATION OF RIBOFLAVIN CONTENT IN INFANT FORMULAS FROM SERBIA BY LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH FLUORESCENCE DETECTION

Abstract

Breastfeeding is considered as the best feeding choice for newborns. As some infants could not be fed by their mothers, infant formulas remain an alternative to breast-milk and thus, play an important role in infant’s diet. During the years, infant formula manufacturers have made changes to formulas in order to closely match human milk composition. However, the control of the infant formula quality is mandatory in order to ensure that infants everywhere are well nourished. Riboflavin, or vitamin B 2 , is essential for normal infant growth, so infant formulas had to contain the required levels of this vitamin. Therefore, in this work, it was developed and validated a simple and accurate HPLC-FLD method for assessment of vitamin B 2 content in infant formulas (linearity range=0.02−2.0 µg/mL; LOQ=0.033 µg/mL; accuracy>96%, respectively). The main advantages of herein described protocol are the use of small volumes of toxic solvents and reagents, simple sample pre-treatment (without enzymatic digestion) and short time of analysis. Ten best-selling infant formulas on Serbian market were assayed for riboflavin content employing the described method. Significant differences were found in the vitamin B 2 levels (from 68.60 to 131.18 µg per 100 mL of prepared milk) in formulas produced by different manufacturers. The values obtained for riboflavin content in all samples mainly correspond to the declared amounts by manufacturer. The conducted quality monitoring revealed that infant formulas from Serbia comply with the nutritional needs of infants with regard to vitamin B 2 .