Abstract
In most cases dietary supplements especially in Libya are consumed without prescriptions and the public has very limited any awareness of their health risk. The lack of quality control on numerous brands of dietary supplements in pharmacies of Libya today may result in a serious health problem. The aim of this study is to determine the iron content using a fast and accurate method for quality control of some imported dietary supplements, based on spectrophotometric measurement of iron after complexation with 1, 10-phenanthroline in an acidic medium. Eight types of vitamin supplementary tablets were randomly collected from the Libyan market and analyzed for the iron content. The analysis showed an average value of 61mg Fe/pill for the range of 40.07-112.63 mg Fe/pill. Results showed that 75% of the samples were lower in iron content than that recorded on the dietary products.