A Colorimetric Method for Determination of Total Serum Lipids Based on the Sulfo-phospho-vanillin Reaction

A simple, rapid, and precisecolorimetric method for total serum lipids based on the sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction is described. The method uses 0.10 ml. of serum and the resulting chromogen follows Beer’s law at 540 mμ. up to lipid concentrations of 1,000 mg. per 100 ml. The colorimetric method gives good agreement with a gravimetric-extraction method and has a coefficient of variation of 3.5%. The simplicity, speed, and reliability of the proposed method makes it suitable for large-scale analyses.