INTERACTIONS OF GRAPEFRUIT WITH MEDICATIONS

Introduction

My interest in grapefruit interaction was piqued quite accidentally. I had been taking lipitor, like many people do, for cholesterol control. Lipitor has some side effects associated with it like muscle aches etc., that is not too severe in many cases. A month ago, I bought a batch of grapefruits which were unusually tasty and fresh. One day, I had been preparing for a meeting in the evening, preparing the handouts, and did not have time to go out to eat. I had eaten several grapefruits for breakfast and lunch. Around 2 PM, I started having a severe pain in the back. I found it difficult to get up from the chair and walk. When I went for the meeting at 6 PM, I could barely walk and just barely made it to the room with great difficulty. I had no clue what happened. It appeared like we will have to cancel a trip we were planning for the weekend to attend a wedding!

To eliminate all possible causes, I discontinued taking lipitor. The discomfort slowly started to ease. It took nearly 2-3 days for the pain and the muscle aches to disappear. (We did make it to the wedding.) After the wedding, we were talking to may sister and brother-in-law (both doctors and both take lipitor) that I felt it was the lipitor that has done it. They have said that they evaluated all possible side reactions and interactions and found that the only thing that can affect lipitor was those that affect cytochrome P450. Suddenly, it all made sense. Grapefruit has been known to interfere with the cytochrome P450. I have done a research into the known interactions of grapefruit and this is the result of such study. I was very surprised by the results. I am sure, many of our visitors to our website will be surprised too. We do not consider listing common, everyday food items like grapefruit as candidates for drug interactions!

Grapefruit has been receiving considerable attention lately for its interaction with many commonly prescribed drugs. In the past, pharmacists routinely suggested that some medications that does not taste good may be taken with a glass of orange or grapefruit juice. Many experts now recommend that you should not mix grapefruit juice and medications. On the other hand, there are instances when this interaction was taken advantage of either to increase the bio-availability of the drug or to reduce the required dosage and still get the higher desired serum concentration of the drug. For this reason, if you are taking grapefruit juice and prescription medications, and is not experiencing any discomforts, do not discontinue the consumption of grapefruit without consulting your doctor to see whether the doctor has adjusted the dosage for the beneficial effects of grapefruit juice. 

We will examine the suggested interaction of grapefruit juice and medications. The description may be a bit technical for average readers. We tried to simplify it as much as possible to make this readable, while still providing important technical information for our professional readers.

Next Topic: The Genesis of the Grapefruit Interaction