Effect of different pretreatment methods on the determination of lovastation in health foods

An analytical method based on HPLC for the determination of lovastation in health foods was studied.The effect of pH, extraction temperature on the molecular structure transformation, and the acidification and alkalinization pretreatment for the determination of lovastatin in health foods were investigated.The results showed that: the acid forms could not transform to the lactone structure completely through acid treatment, while the Lovastatin could translate into one form through alkalinization pretreatment.Linearity was evaluated from 0.500 to200μg /mL ( r = 0.9995) , High recoveries ( 95.2% ¹02%) and good reproducibility ( relative standard deviation below2.9%) were obtained.The limit of detection was 1mg /kg.This method could be applied to the quantification of lovastatin in health food samples.