Health and Fitness : Grapefruit and medicines....talk with your doctor or pharmacist

Many people have heard that grapefruit can cause harmful interactions with prescription medicines. Most don’t know that because many citrus plants are grafted on grapefruit stems and can have grapefruit-like effects even though the products aren’t thought of as being grapefruit. Grapefruit juice is also included in many “citrus-flavored” drinks and grapefruit may or may not be specifically listed on the product label.

So what does grapefruit do? It causes many medicines to be absorbed more quickly than they should and that can lead to a number of unwanted side effects. For example, if you drink a lot of grapefruit juice while taking certain statin drugs to lower cholesterol, the drug may be absorbed too quickly (overdose) increasing your risk for liver damage and muscle breakdown that can lead to kidney failure.

Grapefruit can also cause other medicines, like allergy medicines, to be absorbed too slowly. The effectiveness of those drugs is reduced because you are actually receiving a lower dose of the medicine than what was intended.

A partial sample of popular medications interacting with citrus include: erythromycin, atorvastatin (Lipitor), lovastatin (Altoprev), felodipine, carvedilol (Coreg), amiodarone (Coradarone, Paceron, diazepam (Valium, Diastat), and fluvoxamine.

Taking your medication at a different time of the day than when you consume citrus products won’t stop the interaction. The only way to avoid the interaction is to eliminate the citrus entirely.

Play it safe with prescription drugs. Always ask your doctor or pharmacist when you get a new prescription if it interacts with any foods or other medicines. If the answer is yes, ask whether you need to eliminate that food from your diet.

Read the Medication Guide or patient information sheet that comes with your prescription medicine to find out if it could interact with grapefruit juice. Some may advise not to take the drug with grapefruit juice. If it’s OK to have grapefruit juice there will be no mention of it in the guide or information sheet.

Read the Drug Facts label on your non-prescription medicine to know if you shouldn’t have grapefruit or other fruit juices with it.

This article provided with the assistance of Cornerstone Apothecary, Belle Plaine, Marengo and Van Horne.

All health and health-related information contained within this post or article is intended to be general in nature and should not be used as a substitute for a consultation with a health care professional. The information is intended to offer only a general basis for individuals to discuss medical conditions with their health care provider. Your health care provider should be consulted regarding matters concerning the medical condition, treatment and needs of you and your family.