Posted on 03/21/2006 11:20:30 PM PST by neverdem
In 1989, a group of Canadian researchers studying a blood pressure drug were astonished to discover that drinking a glass of grapefruit juice dangerously increased the drug's potency.
They were testing the effects of drinking alcohol on a medicine called Plendil. The scientists needed something that would hide the taste of alcohol so that subjects would know only that they were taking the drug and not know whether they were drinking alcohol with it.
"One Saturday night, my wife and I tested everything in the refrigerator," said David G. Bailey, a research scientist at the London Health Sciences Center in London, Ontario, and the lead author on the study. "The only thing that covered the taste was grapefruit juice."
So they used it in their experiment, expecting the grapefruit juice to be irrelevant to their results. But blood levels of the drug went up significantly in the control group that drank just grapefruit juice, without alcohol.
"People didn't believe us," Dr. Bailey said. "They thought it was a joke. We had trouble getting it published in a major medical journal."
Eventually the paper was accepted and published by Lancet, in February 1991.
Finding why juice had that effect was the next question.
The answer, it turned out, lay in a family of enzymes called the cytochrome P-450 system, in particular one known as CYP 3A4. This enzyme metabolizes many drugs, and toxins as well, into substances that are less potent or more easily excreted or both.
Grapefruit juice interferes with the ability of CYP 3A4 to do that, increasing...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Also note that adding additional medications may entail mixing drugs that use the same Cytochrome P450 enzyme. If that occurs, the enzyme will degrade the drug its most specific to and leave the other at an elevated level (b/c it's overloaded).
When you're using multiple drugs and add another one, if you get a weird reaction, the enzyme herementioned may be the culprit.
I'll take help wherever I can ge it.
This is what the NY Slimes ought to stick to: health advice with caveats.
As a general rule, that's what I tried to do.
Because the disgusting taste of grapefruit juice overwhelms every other taste.
Ever since childhood, I have not understood why people seem to like grapefruits amd grapefruit juice.
Different people taste things differently. There are several taste tests used in biology classes to show this to students. Here's one of many references: http://www.ns.purchase.edu/biology/bio1550lab/ptc_tasting.htm
I had always heard that you could eat grapefruit and it had no effect on the medication. You just couldn't drink the juice. I have no idea why the difference.
Also, they're not that tart if you sprinkle sugar on them.
I was about to say that. I was on Baycol for about 3 months and the clinic called me to stop taking it. I've been on Zocor. The way I read that label is that grapefruit and Zocor doesn't mix. My med labels don't say anything about that. Am I reading that right? Anyways it might be all for naught as I don't ever drink the stuff.
Odor is a large part of a flavor. Graprefruit smells good.
5.56mm
I use GSE also - had been going to a Podiatrist for a very painful plantar wart - the GSE was the thing that really cleared it up fast.
For Diuretics, also prescribed for people with high blood pressure, other circulatory or kidney problems, it is also recommended not to take the medicine with grapefruit juice.
How old is that chart? Hismanal (an antihistamine) was pulled off the market a few years back. I used to take it.
So does grapefruit juice have the same effect on booze? Just wondering.
Put some splenda on one and try it. They are yummy. This coming from a picky eater. It suprised me. I only tried it because of a diet. Now I eat them alot. Just bought some last night.
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