On Prescription Meds? The Grapefruit Will Kill You ...

At one stage of my life I was getting high on over the counter codeine-based cough syrups. Grapefruit juice inhibits the enzyme that processes opiates out of your system and I was hoping to use it to boost the effect of codeine. It never worked for me, though.

Wow, thanks for the tip.

Actually grapefruit interferes with cytochrome P450 in the liver. It strengthens some medicine, makes others weaker, has various effects, or zero effect depending upon the medication. It's not grapefruit doom yet.

A wise patient look up drug interactions with the medications they take and compare that with known interactions with foods like grapefruit, or the very common interactions with tobacco or alcohol.

from Big Pharma which would have you dependent and requiring to purchase ever more drugs.

Quercetin will supercharge your meds so you do not need take so much/many. Save money.

Get rid of the pill and eat Grapefruit.

thats just stupid(BS flag), and beside the point. The thread is just here to make people aware.
If one is on these medications and doesn't realize the possible consequences...well, it is always better to know.

Good post for making people aware as I don't know what the communication about this has been like in the States.
Over here though it's been advertised in every medical centre for a few years.

Good to know.

On the other hand, the Prescription Meds on their own may kill you too.

I, personally, am not on any medication, but do realize many are...I have never heard of it, the possible interactions, story states many American Doctors seem unaware, so I decided to post...thanks

All the opiate abusers know about this. Everyone that pops pills drinks grapefruit juice all day. The high is way better they say.

The information is in a standard Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) about drug interactions with grapefruit. No one can make a person open the book and read it.

but if someone happens to be reading over threads here, they might just see this...not everyone has an up to date 'PDR' handy, you know.

My meaning is that it's considered part of a physician's responsibility to know about any potential issues with drugs and common interactions. Much of the drudgery of combing through a PDR has been eliminated by scanning for search terms electronically.They should warn you, but given that you might spend all of 8 actually minutes actually consulting a doc, then what you can expect them to pass along with such brevity?

Most patiens have inserts in their medications when they take samples, but probably don't read them. The data is on that too generally.

There's been drug interactions with grapefruit before with things like Seldane back in 2001. Actually if we understood the complex biochemistry of graprefruit better, then in some cases we probably could enhance some drugs by combining it synergistically, and probably lower the cost.

For example, caffeine potentiates many drugs, and it's an additive in certain medications. However, I bet that no one has ever told you not to drink coffee with your meds, because people don't think of that particular drug interaction. Other common things like niacin or tobacco increase blood circulation to the brain, and could alter the effect a drug has as a result.

There are many websites now that allow a patient to type in all their medications to see if there's any potential drug interactions between them. Not only that, but you can also pull up the PDR type information in an informal way to see if common substances interact as well.
[link to www.drugs.com]

Sometimes an herbal drug can interact too, so people who use them, should really see if this can happen based upon the medicines and herbs they take. Let's say someone was on Prozac (Fluoxetine) for depression. Then they also took St. John's Wort too from time to time. Both have a similar mechanism of action to be selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. This makes serotonin hang around longer in the brain so people feel happier. You could actually be way magnifying the effects by double dosing like that, which could cause Serotonin Shock Syndrome.

I'm not anti-herbs either. I've talked about them regularly here, but people should realize their power. Likewise food can be a potent magnifier of medicines.

I smoke cigarettes. How do I find out what drugs tobacco effects?

Please advise.

All very good points. There are many things people ingest without a second thought. The info on the PDR will help many. Thanks

Perhaps try this link someone else put up here: [link to www.drugs.com]

-or maybe, the know-it-all dbag who gave me red karma for this thread can enlighten us...

...is there anything left that isnt killing us..?