Can you share a photo of the tablets and packaging that you purchased that was shipped to you? Oddway is just a reseller. If the acarbose is fake, part of the issue might be Oddway, but obviously they don’t don’t manufacture the products - they buy from someone who does. It would be a supplier of theirs that is problematic (not that Oddway also doesn’t have responsibility for the quality of the products - but most pharmacies don’t validate the quality of the products they sell.
4 Likes
My Acarbose looks exactly the same but was sent by a different vendor, so I wouldn’t necessarily blame Oddway.
I suspect none of the vendors test the products.
2 Likes
To follow up on my delayed shipment from Kachhela:
After 30 days since my payment, Anil still wants me to wait another week for my package to leave the Mumbai post office before he will ship a replacement. So what this means is that my total time to receive my shipment product will be going on 2 months.
The point he makes is that it is out of his control and that all vendors have this problem around Diwali, Xmas, and New years.
Its good to be aware of this and to take it into consideration when placing an order for essentials.
3 Likes
Something might be wrong, since I don’t think they will use an American product in India as a filler. Is mass spectrometry really able to detect miniscule 100 mg amounts of a compound? It doesn’t make sense they will fake Acarbose so elaborately. You could maybe get in touch with someone from Bayer as it’s their product that’s possibly being faked.
You could try buy from here and compare:
1 Like
That seems like an unusual filler. How did you do the Maxi Spec analysis? Did you do it yourself? I’m more familiar with HPLC. You can see the analysis by Valisure (HPLC analysis) on Biocon and Zydus sirolimus below from this: Rapamycin / Sirolimus from India, Lab Test Report on Quality / Purity
Also - did the packaging box look like this below image?
And my acarbose “strips” look like this (do yours look like this at all? - your seem to have no color - which could be a sign?)
1 Like
He was showing the other side only which has no colour.
Well I am not a chemist so I do not have all the answers you mentioned here.
Here is what I know: There is a service in my hometown that offer free drug analysis (to counter drug overdose and harm reduction)
I took the opportunity to test that chemical.
The social worker put a tiny amount on the mass spectrometry machine…The results are as shown on the picture I attached.
Did he do it well…I am not sure…Is the machine at fault? Maybe, but its a brand new machine…
In truth, I am not qualified to answer about the validity of that… however I did lose trust in this vendor and will test all substance I receive from India in the future.
1 Like
A better test: Take acarbose with a high carbohydrate meal, preferably with a lot of wheat. Eat some wheat bread etc. If you don’t fart a lot in the next twelve hours, it is not acarbose. 
7 Likes
This is the Acarbose I buy from Kachhela. Using the @desertshores testing protocol it is undoubtedly the real thing! 
2 Likes
I’ve used HPLC-MS and a possible reason that the adulterant found is so odd, is that it depends on what library the MS fragments are being matched against.
From your description it sounds like it’s a narcotics and associated adulterants (that have been used by drug dealers in the past) library, it may not even have acarbose in its library, as it’s not a recreational drug.
4 Likes
Off the top of my head, and going back to my school book chemistry, I think the acarbose could be tested using an in-vitro amylase/starch/iodide test.
1 Like
Honestly, the best way to test it is the @desertshores method. If it’s really Butter Buds, you’ll have a sweet taste when you chew it up and you won’t fart like crazy. Butter Buds pose no health risk if you ingest them.
3 Likes
Alternatively, compare eating high carb with or without drug on blood sugar.
1 Like
Based on your description of its use (to identify impurities in street drugs), and based on the output screen, I’d bet my house that that’s an FTIR spectrometer, not the LC/MS that people may be thinking of. Here is the inverse curve for Acarbose (transmission, not absorption). Note that it very closely matches the spectrum on the screen. You almost definitely have Acarbose, not butter buds.
If you don’t believe the curve, you could try contacting Bruker (the manufacturer) to see of Acarbose is in their OPUS database, or ask your friend to use the software to search for both. Compare the Butter Buds spectrum to Acarbose. Even if they are similar, would the drug counterfeiter go out of their way to find compounds with very similar spectra? Maybe, but I think with this information and the fart test, you can be almost certain.
Edit: adding inverted and flipped version for clarity.
11 Likes
Very interesting agent smith, thanks for the technical insight guys…
The false confidence of the social worker might have confounded me…I need to do more reading about the different machines, inverse curves etc.
4 Likes
Oh, this stuff is definitely inside baseball!
What I’m now wondering is whether acarbose and butter buds are chemically similar enough that we can all stop importing glucobay. Somebody please get some butter buds and do the gas test.
5 Likes
Congratulations on a brilliant piece of detective work 
, but I still think the library is a bit sus.
4 Likes