GC-MS detection of possible adulterants in traditional Malay pain-relief medicine from retail markets

Traditional Malay remedies have gained loyal consumers due to their accessibility and lower cost compared to modern pharmaceutical medicine. Known as complementary medicine, this Malay herbal medicine is mainly used as pain-reliver and derived from various types of natural medicinal plants. However, the question concerning these remedies’ authenticity and quality has arisen because of the rapid commercialization. This study expresses concern and fear regarding the contents of herbal remedies claimed to relieve pain. Therefore, this study was conducted to detect possible adulterants in traditional Malay herbal medicines used for pain treatment using GC-MS. Ten samples of Malay herbal medicines were collected to undergo extraction by centrifugation and filtration. Gas chromatographymass spectroscopy was used for analysis where electron ionization in scan mode was applied for mass spectrometric detection and the compounds were identified using NIST spectrum library. The result showed that most of the natural compounds detected in the samples were eugenol, hexadecanoic acid, oleic acid and octadecanoic acid which aligned with the plant-based ingredients as claimed. Moreover, 7 out of 10 samples contained compounds with analgesic properties. Combining liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is recommended in further study to detect diverse type of compound such as polar, non-volatile and thermally unstable compound as GC-MS is only limited in detecting volatile and semi-volatile compounds.