Grapefruit & medications

RockerGuy

RockerGuy

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I'm sure alot of people here don't watch the news. So I will post this:

More prescription drugs are coming on the market that can interact with grapefruit juice with potentially serious effects such as sudden death, Canadian doctors warn.

David Bailey, a clinical pharmacologist at the Lawson Health Research Institute in London, Ont., discovered the interaction between grapefruit and certain medications more than 20 years ago. Since then, he said the number of drugs with the potential to interact has jumped to more than 85....
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/11/26/grapefruit-juice-drug-interactions.html


Upon further investigation, here are a few of those drugs.

[TABLE="class: content, width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]Anti-anxiety[/TD]
[TD]Buspirone[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: bodyrow"]
[TD]Anti-arrhythmia[/TD]
[TD]Amiodarone (Cordarone)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Antidepressant[/TD]
[TD]Sertraline (Zoloft)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: bodyrow"]
[TD]Antihistamine[/TD]
[TD]Fexofenadine (Allegra)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Anti-retroviral[/TD]
[TD]Saquinavir (Invirase), indinavir (Crixivan)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: bodyrow"]
[TD]Anti-seizure[/TD]
[TD]Carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Tegretol)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Calcium channel blocker[/TD]
[TD]Nifedipine (Procardia), nimodipine (Nimotop), nisoldipine (Sular)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: bodyrow"]
[TD]Immunosuppressant[/TD]
[TD]Cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune), tacrolimus (Prograf), sirolimus (Rapamune)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Statin[/TD]
[TD]Simvastatin (Zocor), lovastatin (Mevacor), atorvastatin (Lipitor)[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/food-and-nutrition/AN00413
 
Interesting. Guess I have to read that, I see a few drugs I commonly give out at work.
 
rmemedic said:
Interesting. Guess I have to read that, I see a few drugs I commonly give out at work.
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hmmm we need to do business.

give out

and

drugs

in the same sentence sounds like business partnership
 
There are a lot of common drugs that don't react well with grapefruits, I thought the problem was that grapefruit blocked the effectiveness of the drug I didn't realize it was more serious than that.

Thanks for posting.
 
I think it blocks the mechanisms by which the drugs are metabolised and hence excreted from the body. The longer a drug remains in the body the more chance of side effects.
 
I knew that drugs and certain foods don't interact well with either foods reducing the effectiveness of the drugs themselves or by hindering absorption. But, to cause effects that can lead to death, I'm a tad surprised.
 
Colesterol drugs and a lot of diabeties meds also . I'm sitting beside a pedi nurse. She says this is pretty common knowledge in the med field, most pharmacists will tell you this when you start on most any of the listed pills.
No grapefruit within 3 hrs of taking the med, better yet avoid it completely
 
rmemedic said:
I knew that drugs and certain foods don't interact well with either foods reducing the effectiveness of the drugs themselves or by hindering absorption. But, to cause effects that can lead to death, I'm a tad surprised.
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Not metabolized means can lead to overdose. Dosage often takes into account weight etc for some medications as a guide for how long the compound stays in the body and is active for.
 
sircastic said:
There are a lot of common drugs that don't react well with grapefruits, I thought the problem was that grapefruit blocked the effectiveness of the drug I didn't realize it was more serious than that.

Thanks for posting.
Click to expand...

From my understanding. It blocks certain enzymes so the drug becomes rapidly absorbed into the system. This leads to overdose; large amount of drugs get into the bloodstream in a short amount of time. Hence, the overdosing effect
 
jc100 said:
Not metabolized means can lead to overdose. Dosage often takes into account weight etc for some medications as a guide for how long the compound stays in the body and is active for.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I ended up reading the articles.

Honestly, we've been told about interactions between certain foods (acidic ones like grapefruits) and meds, but never had it been brought up that it could cause an overdose with the suggested dosage of the med.
 
There are certain drug combinations that do the same thing where one drug blocks the metabolism of the other. Your pharmacists are usually well aware of what these are though. The problems arise when you're taking some natural medications though. For instance, Gingko doesn't play well with some drugs as it thins the blood.
 
Medications and interactions with each other is a giant crapshoot. There's no way to know how any med will react with any other med or food, that's why they have those ridiculously long warnings.

My dad is on anti-rejection drugs and his doctor told him specifically not to eat any grapefruit.
 
Any chance this is over-blown media hype?
I mean people have died from gastric reactions to taking aspirin!
Most medications that exist have had serious/lethal reactions to at least 1 person who has taken them.
Just because a study shows that a risk may exist shouldn't mean everyone on meds should completely avoid grapefruit altogether no?
I think moderation is the key (like everything in life).
IMHO
 
I'll also throw in that anything with a lot of Vitamin C (such as grapefruit) also affects birth control pill effectiveness. Other innocuous things such as St. John's Wort and Echinacea tend to trigger MS attacks in those people with relapse-remitting MS.

There are so many things that affect health, pre-existing health conditions and medications in adverse ways that it's astonishing. Read the hell out of everything — drugs you're prescribed, OTC medications, etc., for any contraindications.
 
RockerGuy said:
From my understanding. It blocks certain enzymes so the drug becomes rapidly absorbed into the system. This leads to overdose; large amount of drugs get into the bloodstream in a short amount of time. Hence, the overdosing effect
Click to expand...

Legend has it some people take advantage of that with some drugs.
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