Grapefruit’s Interaction With Certain Medications
Grapefruit juice provides many nutrients, such as vitamin C and lycopene. There are chemicals in grapefruit that can interfere with the enzymes that break down certain medications in your digestive system. This can result in excessively high levels of these medications in your blood and an increased risk of serious side effects.
The exact chemicals in grapefruit juice that cause this interaction are not known, but these chemicals are present in the pulp and peel of grapefruit as well as in the juice. For this reason, any grapefruit product, or dietary supplements that contain grapefruit bioflavonoids, can interact with certain medications. If you avoid grapefruit, you may also want to avoid tangelos, hybrid grapefruit, and
“If you are taking medications which may be affected by grapefruit or grapefruit juice, then do not drink grapefruit juice,” said Joseph Marek, MD, cardiologist with Midwest Heart Specialists. “Studies still vary on how much juice a patient can drink and when. Our advice is to play it safe and avoid grapefruit in any form.” Should you have questions about your medications and drinking grapefruit juice, we advise you to ask your Midwest Heart Specialists physician about possible interactions.
The following drugs are known to have potentially serious interactions with grapefruit products, tangelos and
Type of Drug Drug Name
|
Anti- seizure medication |
Carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Tegretol) |
|
Antidepressants |
Buspirone (BuSpar), Clomipramine (Anafranil) and Sertraline (Zoloft) |
|
Tranquilizers |
Diazepam (Valium) and Trazolam (Halcion) |
|
Calcium channel blockers used to treat high blood pressure |
Felodipine (Plendil), Nifedipine (Adalat, Procardia), Nimodipine (Nimotop), Nisoldipine (Sular), and Verapamil (Isoptin, Verelan) |
|
HIV Medications |
Saquinavir (Invirase) and Indinavir (Crixivan) |
|
HMG- CoA Reductase Inhibitors Used To Treat High Cholesterol |
Simvastatin (Zocor), Lovastatin (Mevacor, Altoprev), Simvastatin-Ezetimibe (Vytorin) and Atorvastatin (Lipitor ) |
|
Immunosuppressant Drugs |
Cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune), tacrolimus (Prograf) and Sirolimus (Rapamune) |
|
Antiarrhythmics |
Amiodarone (Cordarone), Quinidine (Quinidex, Cardioquin, Quinora), Disopyramine (Norpace) |
|
Pain Relief Medication |
Methadone |
|
Erectile Dysfunction Medication |
Sildenafi (Viagra), Tadalafil (Cialis), and Vardenafil (Levitra) |
|
Antihistamines |
Claritin (Loratadine) |
|
Hormones |
Ortho-cept (Ethinyl Estradio) and Depo-Medrol (Methylprednisolone) |
|
Hypertension |
Losartan (Cozaar) |
“Grapefruit/Drug Interaction.” Yaffe & Ruden Medical Associates. 15. October. 2008.<http://www.yafferuden.com/html/grapefruit_drug_interaction.html>.
“Grapefruit juice: Can it cause drug interactions?” MayoClinic.com. 23. January. 2007. <http://www.mayoclinic.com /health/food-and-nutrition/AN00413>.
List of drugs affected by grapefruit.” Wikipedia. 15. October. 2008.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drugs_affected_by_grapefruit>.