Grapefruit and Pills

[Bazile]

Important to Know .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20497086

[Sqad]

Well here we go again and LazyGun will add his opinion.......interaction between certain hypotensive agents e.g felodipine has been known for a long time and one must remember that drug interaction doesn't affect all patients.

Medicine in it's human setting and not in the laboratory.....who drinks a glass of grapefruit juice, perhaps but a small glass with your breakfast?

I am not impressed and feel that like many other pieces of research in medicine is severely blown out of all proportion.....my opinion.

Also my opinion, if you are taking hypotensive agents and your BP is stable, then a small glass of grapefruit juice at breakfast will do no harm.

[murraymints]

My dad has been told not to have Grapefruit..not sure which medication dictates..he is on so many ..but..he does not like the stuff anyway !!

[boxtops]

This isn't new, I was told when I started on statins (and it says it in the leaflet) to avoid grapefruit

[Sir Alec]

I have listened to a discussion on this topic tonight, on radio 4. Grapefruit can magnify the strength of certain tablets by up to 5 times, which I imagine is extremely dangerous. I would err on the side of caution and avoid it.

[LazyGun]

I can see where Sqad is coming from - but grapefruit does have some clinically significant interactions. You do see significantly altered pharmokinetic parameters with some drugs and grapefruit, which does lead to greater bioavailability of the drug in question, and this can be an important factor in prescribing.

Some example widely prescribed drugs where a notably significant interaction has been observed are Simvistatin, Cyclosporin, many of the Calcium Channel blockers, and some immunosuppresive drugs.

So,if you do like grapefruit, but are on or likely to be put on medication, you should probably discuss this with your prescribing doctor :)

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2474.aspx?CategoryID=73&SubCategoryID=103

http://www.mcppnet.org/publications/ISSUE05-4.pdf

[plautus]

"You do see significantly altered pharmokinetic parameters with some drugs and grapefruit..."

Why could they not spell it out in simple terms like this earlier?

[LazyGun]

@Plautus - This forum does not lend itself to subtlety or nuance, so apologies if I am not entirely sure whether you were being ironic or not :)

Do you feel my post was unclear?

[pdq1]

LOL platus!!!