Method of measuring artificial sweeteners in bodily waste to identify and quantify drug consumption

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10241122-B2
Application number	US-201715472989-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 29, 2017
Priority date	Mar 29, 2017
Publication date	Mar 26, 2019
Grant date	Mar 26, 2019

Abstract

We disclose a drug tracking system and method of use which may be used to screen a subject's bodily waste in order to assess whether the subject has consumed a drug. The system includes a drug composition which is tagged with at least one artificial sweetener that may be detected in the subject's bodily waste. The subject may consume the tagged drug and a user may obtain a sample of the subject's bodily waste. The bodily waste sample may be analyzed to detect the artificial sweetener or its metabolite. In some embodiments, the result of the analysis of bodily waste may be entered into a database, compared to standards that comprises analyses of a plurality of drug tags, and the identity of the drug tag, and consequently the drug composition, determined.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of tracking drug consumption comprising the steps of:
a. obtaining a bodily waste sample from a subject, wherein the subject has consumed a drug composition, wherein the drug composition comprises a drug tag, and wherein the drug tag comprises at least one artificial sweetener;
b. creating an analysis of the bodily waste sample using techniques which determine the identity, quantity, or both the identity and quantity of the at least one artificial sweetener, an at least one reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener, or a combination thereof.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one artificial sweetener is independently selected from one or more the group consisting of the following: acesulfame K, saccharine, sucralose, steviol glycoside, neotame, aspartame, cyclamic acid, calcium cyclamate, sodium cyclamate, polyethylene glycol, and sugar alcohols.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the sugar alcohols consist of one or more of the following sugar alcohols: arabitol, erythritol, fucitol, galactitol, glycerol, iditol, inositol, isomalt, lactitol, maltitol, maltotetraitol, maltotriitol, mannitol, polyglycitol, ribitol, sorbitol, threitol, volemitol, and xylitol.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener is selected from the group consisting of the following: cyclohexylamine, steviol glucuronide, and N—[N-(3,3-dimethylbutyl)-L-alpha-aspartyl]-L-phenylalanine.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of reacting the bodily waste sample to derivative the at least one artificial sweetener present in the bodily waste sample.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analysis of the bodily waste sample comprises one or more of the following analytical techniques: gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, capillary zone electrophoresis with UV absorbance, high performance liquid chromatography with UV absorbance, reverse-phase chromatography, fluorescence spectroscopy, high performance thin layer chromatography, infrared spectroscopy, UV spectroscopy, near IR spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, ion mobility spectrometry, liquid chromatography-ion mobility spectroscopy, liquid chromatography-electrochemical detection, liquid chromatography-UV spectroscopy with a normal UV photodetector, thin layer chromatography, liquid chromatography, and Raman spectroscopy.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the drug tag comprises a plurality of artificial sweeteners in a defined ratio.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein steps (a) and (b) are performed a plurality of times, and further comprising the step of performing a trending analysis.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein para-aminobenzoic acid is added to the drug composition as a biomarker, and further comprising the steps of:
a. determining the quantity of para-aminobenzoic acid in the bodily waste sample; and
b. expressing the quantity of the at least one artificial sweetener, the at least one reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener, or a combination thereof in relation to the quantity of para-aminobenzoic acid.

10. A method of tracking drug consumption comprising the steps of:
a. obtaining a bodily waste sample from a subject, wherein the subject has consumed at least one drug composition, wherein each of the at least one drug composition comprises at least one of a plurality of unique drug tags, and wherein at least one of the plurality of unique drug tags comprises at least one artificial sweetener;
b. creating an analysis of the bodily waste sample using techniques which determine an identity, a quantity, or both the identity and the quantity of the at least one artificial sweetener, an at least one reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener, or a combination thereof;
c. comparing the analysis of the bodily waste sample to at least one standard, wherein each of the at least one standard comprises an analysis of the at least one of the plurality of unique drug tags comprising at least one artificial sweetener or a reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener; wherein each standard comprises an analysis of a different one of the plurality of unique drug tags comprising at least one artificial sweetener or the reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener;
d. identifying at least one matching standard, wherein each of the at least one matching standard comprises a standard which at least partially matches the analysis of the bodily waste sample;
e. identifying the at least one artificial sweetener used to create each of the at least one matching standard;
f. identifying the at least one of the plurality of unique drug tags which comprises the at least one artificial sweetener used to create the at least one matching standard;
g. identifying the at least one drug composition which comprises the at least one of the plurality of unique drug tags identified in step “f”.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one standard is stored in a database, and wherein a computer readable medium performs steps “c” through “g” of claim 10 .

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one artificial sweetener is independently selected from one or more the group consisting of the following: acesulfame K, saccharine, sucralose, steviol glycoside, neotame, aspartame, cyclamic acid, calcium cyclamate, sodium cyclamate, polyethylene glycol, and sugar alcohols.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the sugar alcohols consist of one or more of the following sugar alcohols: arabitol, erythritol, fucitol, galactitol, glycerol, iditol, inositol, isomalt, lactitol, maltitol, maltotetraitol, maltotriitol, mannitol, polyglycitol, ribitol, sorbitol, threitol, volemitol, and xylitol.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the reaction product of the at least one artificial sweetener is selected from the group consisting of the following: cyclohexylamine, steviol glucuronide, and N—[N-(3,3-dimethylbutyl)-L-alpha-aspartyl]-L-phenylalanine.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising the step of reacting the bodily waste sample to derivative the at least one artificial sweetener present in the bodily waste sample.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein the analysis of the bodily waste sample comprises one or more of the following analytical techniques: gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, capillary zone electrophoresis with UV absorbance, high performance liquid chromatography with UV absorbance, reverse-phase chromatography, fluorescence spectroscopy; high performance thin layer chromatography, infrared spectroscopy, UV spectroscopy, near IR spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, ion mobility spectrometry, liquid chromatography-ion mobility spectroscopy, liquid chromatography-electrochemical detection, liquid chromatography-UV spectroscopy with a normal UV photodetector, thin layer chromatography, liquid chromatography, and Raman spectroscopy.

17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one drug composition comprises a plurality of artificial sweeteners in a defined ratio.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein steps (a) through (g) are performed a plurality of times, and further comprising the step of performing a trending analysis.

19. The method of claim 10 , wherein para-aminobenzoic acid is added as a biomarker to the at least one drug composition, and further comprising the steps of:
a. determining the quantity of para-aminobenzoic acid in the bodily waste sample; and
b. expressing the quantit

Assignees

• Hall David R
• Butala Steven
• Allen Dan
• Hendricks Daniel
• Nguyen Andrew
• Rosenbrock Conrad
• Pearman Terrece

Inventors

• Hall David R
• Butala Steven
• Allen Dan
• Hendricks Daniel
• Nguyen Andrew
• Rosenbrock Conrad
• Pearman Terrece

Classifications

• A61B5/7271

  Specific aspects of physiological measurement analysis (specific diagnostics methods using bioelectric or biomagnetic signals A61B5/316) · CPC title

• G01N2021/6439

  with indicators, stains, dyes, tags, labels, marks · CPC title

• A61B5/0075

  by spectroscopy, i.e. measuring spectra, e.g. Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy (A61B5/0071 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G01N2800/52

  Predicting or monitoring the response to treatment, e.g. for selection of therapy based on assay results in personalised medicine; Prognosis · CPC title

• G01N33/58

  involving labelled substances (G01N33/53 takes precedence) · CPC title