[eb2phkingood]

hey guys, figured there was no better place to post this then the analytical forum! you guys are geniuses when it comes to analyzing things. so here is what we have:

my dad had a heart attack, during recovery he signed a BLIND STUDY saying that he will either get 2,000mg of vitamin C absorbic acid each day, or he will get the placebo pill with whatever in it (anything BUT vitamin C). Well the last day they brought him his Vitamin C tablet he decided to keep the capsule instead of swallowing it. So now i have a capsule that is either 2,000mg vitamin C, or it is the control/placebo. So i have TWO questions:

1) can this be done experimentally at home? if so, how?

2) if it cannot be done at home, i am currently in analytical chemistry and can ask my lab instructor to help me out. but once again, what is the best way/easiest way to go about it?

all i need to do is figure out if this capsule contains vitamin C or not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! kinda fun actually figuring out which one he was on  

thanks in advance!

[Borek]

Check what is chemistry of vitamin C, it reacts with many common reagents.

[eb2phkingood]

Check what is chemistry of vitamin C, it reacts with many common reagents.

so i just need to look up what reacts with vitamin C? i am not a chemist by any means, i was just lead this way by someone a lot smarter than me for help with finding out what is actually in this capsule.

[Borek]

You should be able to relatively easily determine equivalent molar mass of the substance, as you are only interested in YES/NO type answer, that should be enough to find out if it was Vit C or not.

There is a problem though. No idea what was the protocol used in the study and if the research is already done or not (could be your Dad health will be evaluated later again). However, what you two do may jeopardize research results - and such research often costs thousands in not millions of dollars. Could be you are not only wasting someones effort, but also put yourself in the position where you can be sued - you better check fine print.

[eb2phkingood]

You should be able to relatively easily determine equivalent molar mass of the substance, as you are only interested in YES/NO type answer, that should be enough to find out if it was Vit C or not.

There is a problem though. No idea what was the protocol used in the study and if the research is already done or not (could be your Dad health will be evaluated later again). However, what you two do may jeopardize research results - and such research often costs thousands in not millions of dollars. Could be you are not only wasting someones effort, but also put yourself in the position where you can be sued - you better check fine print.

Yes it was a blind study, however it clearly states in the study that he must take the vitamin C UNTIL his triglycerides are under XXX for 48 hours, which they were after 6 days. he took a pill a day, 6 days, leaving 1 pill left over, which he kept.

so what is the best way to go about finding out if its yes or no vitamin C?

[saden99]

Well, if it is Vitamin C then you could look at the pill as a sample.

The sample has Vitamin C + other stuff and what you want to do is isolate the Vitamin C. It's soluble in water so you could isolate it that way. I'm not going to get into any sort of procedure because the placebo pill might also have a certain amount of Vitamin C in it. If it IS Vitamin C I wouldn't be surprised if there was some amount of it in there that could cause differences. Companies that run these studies have their reasons for making Placebo pills this way...but they aren't always just sugar filling.



There's always the caveman way of doing things...taste the powder. There's not really going to be an easy answer here, but I'm sure you could find something that ascorbic acid reacts with that might be able to help out. Maybe lead to a titration of the sample in order to find a concentration and if it happens to be around 2000mg (not going to be exact) then perhaps you've got the experimental sample.


But again...I don't suggest doing this if it could screw up the study somehow.

[Borek]

so what is the best way to go about finding out if its yes or no vitamin C?

There is enough hints in this thread now to get you started. Have you checked vit C properties?

[AWK]

http://chemistry.about.com/od/demonstrationsexperiments/ss/vitctitration.htm