Abstract: Currently, the illegal addition of diuretics in foods and functional foods labeled as “weight loss” is a common occurrence. Businesses use the short-term dehydration effect of diuretics to create the illusion of “rapid weight loss”, thus misleading consumers. Long-term consumption of those foods may lead to health risks such as electrolyte imbalance and renal function damage. Meanwhile, the problem of diuretic residues in animal-derived foods has become increasingly prominent. The cumulative health risk of diuretics through the food chain cannot be ignored. In this context, the establishment of efficient, precise, and convenient diuretic detection technology holds significant practical importance for strengthening industrial supervision, improving quality control capacity, and safeguarding consumers’ rights and interests. Based on this, this article reviews recent progress on technologies for the detection of diuretics in foods and functional foods, covering detection standard systems, sample pretreatment techniques, and classical and rapid detection methods. It outlines the advantages and disadvantages of various diuretic detection technologies and gives an outlook on future directions in the development of rapid detection technologies including improving the sensitivity and specificity of detection, developing multi-component screening technologies, promoting the integration of sample pretreatment and rapid detection technologies, developing on-site rapid detection equipment integrated with artificial intelligence, and constructing a multi-technology integrated regulatory system. This review aims to provide technical references for industrial supervision and quality control.

Key words: food; functional foods; diuretics; pretreatment; rapid detection