Filling up on grapefruit might help you drop a few pounds, but
proceed with caution: It could be hazardous to your health. Turns out,
eating grapefruit can cause serious—even life-threatening—side effects
if you mix it with any of 43 drugs, according to a new study published
in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Many of the meds that have been found to be dangerous are completely
necessary for treating important and common medical conditions,
according to the study. For women, that could include birth control
pills, some anti-anxiety drugs, and sleeping pills, according to Joe
Graedon, MS, a pharmacologist and co-founder of the website PeoplesPharmacy.com.
The culprit behind all this trouble? Furanocoumarins. This ingredient
in grapefruit deactivates an enzyme in the stomach that breaks down
drugs, which can cause the amount of the drug in your blood to go up,
says Graedon.
“Because the drug isn’t metabolized the way it normally would be, you
end up with a greater potential for toxicity,” he says. So, for
example, if you’re prescribed a specific dose of a blood pressure pill,
that dose alone is meant to keep your blood pressure in check. But if
you take it along with grapefruit or grapefruit juice, you might get the
equivalent of three, four, or even 10 more pills, he says.
And this isn’t the first time grapefruit has been busted as a health
hazard. More than 20 years ago, the same team of researchers that
authored this current study discovered the dangerous interaction. But as
new meds and new formulations make their way into your medicine
cabinet, the number of drugs that you shouldn’t take with grapefruit has
grown from 17 to 43—and this is in the past four years alone.
To find out whether you need to keep grapefruit out of your diet, all
you have to do is ask your doctor or pharmacist if the drugs you’re
taking would react badly with grapefruit, says Graedon. For a complete
list of the 43 drugs that have bad side-effects when mixed with
grapefruit, check here.
Source: Women’s Health Magazine
HBC: Na wa OooOo!
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