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Grapefruit Juice - The concealed dangers Of Drug Interaction
Grapefruit juice is one of the healthiest foods around, right?

A cup of unsweetened white grapefruit juice has only a hundred calories, no fat, more than a hundred percent of the recommended daily quantity of vitamin C, and it has got a zingy taste that can truly get you moving in the morning.

grapefruit juice ( including the juice found in your morning grapefruit half ) can interact with certain medications, leading to potentially heavy implications.

Which medicines does grapefruit juice interact with?

Grapefruit juice can have interaction with many different drugs that folks take to maintain their vitality. If you eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice, you need to ask your prescribing health care provider and chemist about any drugs that you're currently taking and ask again whether new drugs engage with grapefruit juice. The list below contains some of the drugs that engage with grapefruit juice. This isn't a complete list, so if you are a grapefruit fan, check with your physician before starting any medicine.

* Valium ( diazepam ) : This drug is used to treat certain fit afflictions and anxiety.

* Norvasc ( amlodipine ) : This is one of the drugs called a'calcium channel blocker.' It is used to treat angina ( chest agony related to dysfunctional arteries around the heart ). Grapefruit juice interacts with lots of the calcium channel blockers

* Pravachol ( pravastatin ) : Like several of the'statin' drugs used to lower cholesterol, grapefruit juice can change the efficacy of this product

* Cordarone ( Amiodarone ) : This drug is used to treat'arrhythmias' -- to fix irregular heart beat patterns.

What Are the symptoms of These Interactions?

Use of any of these drugs while taking grapefruit juice can cause major complications. As an example, the following have been noted in the interaction of each of the drugs above with grapefruit juice :

* Valium ( diazepam ) : Grapefruit juice can cause you to feel sedated and might make it tougher for you to manipulate your muscle-bound movements ; driving can be threatening

* Norvasc ( amlodipine ) : Grapefruit interacts with many of the calcium channel blockers to provide a extraordinarily fast heartrate ('tachycardia' ) and/or a drop in blood pressure to below safe levels ('hypotension.'

* Pravachol ( pravastatin ) : The statin drugs can have interaction with grapefruit juice to cause muscle toxicities, symptoms of which include muscle weakness, aches and shaking

* Cordarone ( Amiodarone ) : Ironically, mixing this drug with grapefruit juice may cause a rise in the extraordinarily condition it is meant to treat - arrhythmias

What Causes These most likely deadly Interactions?

How can something as apparently harmless as grapefruit juice affect the medicines you take? It's got to do with a special enzyme in your guts and liver that help you absorb many oral drugs and then excrete them when you are done with the drug.

When a doctor prescribes a specific dose of drug ( as an example, one tablet of fifty mg ), she works on the assumption that given the scale of your body, you'll absorb the drug into your body at a certain rate and excrete it at a certain rate. Enzymes in your gut ( or GI ) tract bring food and oral medications into your body. Grapefruit juice appears to affect both the rate of the drug coming into your body and how speedily it is removed. The end result can be an overdose of the drug ) even if you are taking the right dosage for your size.

What can I Do To Avoid deadly Drug Interactions?

if you are on medications that have interaction with grapefruit juices, avoid eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice. Spacing out the drugs and the juice ( for instance, taking your medication at night and having grapefruit for breakfast ) will NOT solve the difficulty ; the grapefruit juice effect remains even after you've stopped having it. If you like the health advantages of grapefruit, or just miss that morning zing, think about moving to other fruits like tomatoes ( a single can has just 41 calories and more than 70% of the vitamin C for the day ) or oranges.

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Maskalyk, J,'Grapefruit juice : potential drug interactions,' Canadian Medical association journal, Volume 167 issue 3, p 279-80, 2002

Shapiro, L,'Drug interactions : Proteins, pumps, and P-450s,' journal of the North American Academy of Dermatology, Volume 47, issue four, pages 467-84, 2002

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