INFORM October 2025

ANALYTICAL METHOD

inform October 2025, Vol. 36 (9) • 23

began searching for DMB in olive oils, working with laborato ries around the world. Since 2014, our major concern was the detection and quantification of this important component that may be present in extra virgin olive oil. I had previously only found a report on the presence of DMB in olive oil and its therapeutic properties in a study from Syracuse University, but beyond that, no other evidence. At every opportunity over the years, in my interactions with other scientists, at global conferences and scientific meetings, I raised the question of the existence of DMB in olive oil and the method of its detection, but the results both at home and abroad were discouraging. We searched the bibliography of more than 200 papers on olive oil, but a method for determin ing the DMB component appeared nowhere. Finally, in the last two years, I initiated a collaboration with Nikos Sakellaropoulos chemical engineer and production manager at Sakellaropoulos Organic Farms in Sparta, Greece and Ahmet Gören a chemistry professor at Gebze Technical University in Turkey. Working together we succeeded in detect ing and identifying this important compound in samples of organic olive oil from Greece and Turkey. METHOD VALIDATION We analyzed nine olive oil samples using headspace gas chro matography mass spectrometry. Samples N1-N7 were donated by Sakellaropoulos Organic Farms and sample N8 was provided by Ahmet Gören’s farm whereas N9 was a commercial olive oil sample obtained from the Turkish Market. We performed the validation experiments for the method by spiking DMB into the olive oil samples. We prepared

matrix-matching calibration samples using DMB-free olive oil samples with the analyte added. We then prepared samples with three different DMB concentration levels (100, 1,000, and 5,000 µg/L) to assess the method’s performance. The HS-GC/MS method we developed effectively deter mined the DMB amounts in the nine extra virgin olive oil samples, as shown in the table below. We found the method developed here to be robust and specific when applied for DMB measurement in olive oil samples. The development of the new head-space gas chromatog raphy/mass spectrometry (HS GC/MS) method will soon find broad application in olive oil research. It is possible the method The DMB values in the nine (9) olive oil samples from Greece and Turkey Source: Kiritsakis, et al. , J Food Bio , 30, 2025, CC 4.0. Olive Oil Sample DMB conc. (μg/L) N1, Plus health blue 9.7 N2, Plus health DMB 11.4 N3, Fyllikon first harvest organic 8.3 N4, Plus health green 7.8 N5, Agourelaio early harvest organic 6.8 N6, unknown 4.8 N7, Armonia monovarietal organic 4.8 N8, Edremit-type olive oil from Kırkağaç, Manisa 8.8 N9, product purchased in Turkey 1.5