DETERMINATION OF SUGARS BY 3,4-DIMETHYLPHENOL REAGENT

According to K. N. Ramachandran and V. K. Gupta (Microchem. J., 1992, 45, 361-364) 3,4-dimethylphenol reagent can be used in the determinati on of glucose, fructose, lactose, and sucrose in biological materials, because these sugars have the same absorptivity. Following their work we state that the procedure should be changed because the above sugar s have different absorptivities (the highest absorptivity for fructose , the lowest for glucose, and intermediate absorptivities for lactose and sucrose). However, it was possible to determine the total sugars i n honey, if the ratio of glucose to fructose was close to one, using s ucrose (x0.95) as a standard. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.