Grapefruit Juice And Medications – Not A Good Idea

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Nearly one in five Americans drink grapefruit juice every morning with their breakfast. Some of those people should really consider switching to orange juice. If you are one of the millions of Americans on daily medication, drinking grapefruit juice may cause serious damage as the grapefruit juice can make your drugs work too well.

At least that's what the findings show. Grapefruit has the ability to block certain enzymes that line the walls of the lower intestines. These enzymes attack certain medications meaning that less of the medication will actually make it into the body than was ingested.

If however, the grapefruit stops these enzymes from doing what they do naturally, most of the medication that is ingested will make its way into the blood stream and this could cause an unintentional overdose. An overdose can be big problems for your organs, particularly your liver and have serious health consequences.

Surprisingly, nobody figured this out until about ten years ago and then it was by accident. A study was being done to determine if alcohol would interact with a drug called felodipine. Test subjects using felodpine were given alcohol mixed with grapefruit juice to mask the taste of the booze. They discovered that the levels of felodpine were significantly higher than in other test results and as a result the incidences of side effects were significantly higher.

They finally figured out it wasn't the interaction with alcohol but the effects of the grapefruit juice that allowed more of the drug to be absorbed causing the overdose. They also discovered that the effects of grapefruit on the enzyme lasted nearly 24 hours. Now in some cases this can be a good thing. Where it's safe to use, taking grapefruit juice can mean that doctors can prescribe lower doses knowing that almost all of the drug will be processed into the body. But for most people this is a bad idea. If you're not sure if your medication will have a bad interaction with grapefruit juice you should switch to another citrus fruit juice, like fresh orange juice, to be sure that there is no risk.

Unless a doctor tells you differently, you should not take grapefruit juice if you are also taking statins, the high blood pressure drug calcium channel blocker, antihistamines, anti HIV drugs or even Viagra. Overdoses of these drugs can cause serious damage.So if you're taking medication, daily or otherwise, be sure to ask you physician if they are safe to take with grapefruit juice. If they aren't, not to worry. There are plenty of other citrus juice options that will get you that great taste all all the fantastic minerals and vitamins.

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