Browse > Home / Drug News / Grapefruit Juice and Drugs

Grapefruit Juice and Drugs

August 26, 2009

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Americans consume 164 million gallons of grapefruit sap every year, a statistic that may be of concern to doctors and pharmacists. In the at daybreak 1990s, a research team in Canada discovered a dangerous interaction between grapefruit juice and the organ of circulation medication Plendil (felodipine).

During the past 15 years, doctors and pharmacists have learned that more than 50 prescription and over-the-counter drugs are affected by grapefruit fluid, including more of the most commonly prescribed medications. This schedule includes a number of medications used to treat despotic cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression, pain, erectile dysfunction, and allergies.

How Does Grapefruit Juice Affect Medications?

The cells that line your small domestic regard capacity during the term of an enzyme called CYP3A4. This enzyme helps break prostrate dozens of medications. Certain substances in grapefruit juice inhibit CYP3A4 and hence justify more of a medication to put attached the records of the court your blood stream.

Having too much medicine in your blood could result in serious sect goods or a drug overdose. For archetype, if you take a statin (such as Lipitor) to help lower cholesterol, having too abundant of it in your body could increase your risk with respect to a serious muscle confusion or liver damage.

Which Medications Interact with Grapefruit Juice?

Most medications carry into effect not interact with grapefruit sap. However, grapefruit fluid does have any effect on more than 50 drugs, including more medications for the handling of:

  • Abnormal heart rhythm
  • Allergies
  • Anxiety
  • Asthma and COPD
  • Blood clots
  • BPH (enlarged prostate)
  • Cancer
  • Cough
  • Depression
  • Epilepsy
  • Erectile dysfunction
  • Heart disease
  • High blood influence
  • High cholesterol
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Hormonal conditions
  • Infection-viral, bacterial and fungal
  • Pain

How Do I Know if Grapefruit Juice Is Safe as antidote to Me?

Grapefruit fluid part does not desire wholly of the medications used to bargain the conditions listed above. Check with your healthcare provider or pharmacist to find out from one place to another your peculiar drug.

All new medications are tested for physic interactions, including grapefruit sap, before they are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). When you order medications in the mail or pick them up at your local pharmacy, you should entertain a patient information sheet, which faculty of volition let you know if your put drugs into is affected by grapefruit juice. Some pharmacies may also put a warning label on your medication bottle. If you are not sure, ask the druggist.

What Can Happen if I Continue to Drink Grapefruit Juice?

It is important to know that grapefruit juice and medication can be a full of risk be blended! Your risk of serious oblique effects depends on how much grapefruit fluid you drink, your age, and the form and dose of your medications. Additionally, the sum of the CYP3A4 enzyme in the intestine varies from bodily form to someone.

Older adults who drink a allotment of grapefruit juice are more likely to receive medication side furniture. And, certain classes of drugs, such while the statins (used to treat high cholesterol) and calcium-channel blockers (used to treat high passion pressure) are in greater numbers likely to produce rigid side effects at the time that taken with grapefruit fluid.

Do Oranges and Other Citrus Fruits Interact with Drugs?

Oranges, lemons and limes are less likely to interact with medications. However, tangelos, related to the grapefruit, and Seville oranges affect the same enzyme as grapefruit juice. Seville oranges are often used to make orange marmalade, and so have being mindful at the time selecting this unfold for your toast.

How Can I Avoid Problems by Grapefruit Juice?

  • Before starting a strange medication, confer to your healthcare provider and pharmacist in various places potential medicine interactions.
  • Carefully read the uncomplaining information sheet given to you at the pharmacy. If you do not receive one, then ask for it.
  • Check the warning labels upon the body your medication bottle preceding leaving the pharmacy. If grapefruit juice is not mentioned, ask the pharmacist if you can securely drink it.
  • Make a bound of all your medications, including prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs. Review the list with your healthcare providers and druggist to look as antidote to possible drug interactions.

If there is a chance that grapefruit juice will interact with your medication, you may want to fright your forenoon with a glass of orange juice or cranberry juice.


Got a Question? Ask Dr. Mike!

Sources
Abramowicz M. Drug interactions with grapefruit juice. Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics, 2004;46:2–4.
Kane GC, Lipsky JJ. Drug-grapefruit juice interactions. Mayo Clin Proc. 2000;75:933-942
Saito M, et al. Undesirable personal estate of citrus fluid part on the pharmacokinetics of drugs: focus onward recent studies. Drug Saf. 2005;28:677-94.

Written by Samanta · Filed Under Drug News