Can You Eat Grapefruit With Statin Drugs
Grapefruits interaction with certain medications can cause levels of medicine to rise in the body and lead to serious side effects.
Can you eat grapefruit with statin drugs. Dont take these interactions lightly. Grapefruit can increase the potency of many drugs including simvastatin from the normal dose up to 4 to 5 times of the dosage. The degree of interaction depends on.
Some drugs like statins used to lower cholesterol are broken down by enzymes. Grapefruit juice can block the action of these enzymes increasing the amount of drug in the body and may cause. They are tangelos which is a hybrid between tangerines and pomelo or grapefruit.
Thats because the studies showing dangerous effects used massive amounts of furanocoumarins the amount found in a quart or more of the juice. Will Honeybells tangelos interact with medications like grapefruit does. Statins and grapefruit dont mix because components in grapefruit interfere with the way statins are broken down in the body.
The effect of the grapefruit can last up to five hours. If you take statin drugs for lowering cholesterol it is a good idea to avoid grapefruit and grapefruit products. One study showed that drinking a glass of grapefruit juice with simvastatin or lovastatin increased blood levels of these statins by 260.
But thats not all. Not all statins are affected equally by grapefruit juice so grapefruit fans might want to switch to a statin thats less affected see the table below. Grapefruit or grapefruit juice affects some statins.
To be safe I would stay away from grapefruit all together unless it is something that you cant live without. Several sources report eating as little as one grapefruit can cause issues. Grapefruit and certain other citrus fruits such as Seville oranges can interfere with several kinds of prescription medications.