Fruit Juice Can Make Some Drugs Ineffective

Washing medicines down with fruit juice can dramatically reduce their effectiveness, claims a new report.

Canadian researchers found that apple, orange or grapefruit juice can make some cancer and heart disease drugs virtually useless. Fruit juice was also found to stop the body from properly absorbing some anti-allergy medicines.

Grapefruit juice is already known to interfere with some drugs, making them more potent and increasing the risk of overdose. Some prescription medicines carry a warning advising patients not to drink grapefruit juice when taking their medicine.

However, this new research suggests that this may just be the tip of the iceberg. In tests, volunteers took an antihistamine drug with either a glass of grapefruit juice or water. Results showed that when the medicine was taken with grapefruit juice only half of it was absorbed.
Study leader Professor David Bailey, from the University of Ontario said losing half of a drug dose could be critical.
"The concern is loss of benefit of medications essential for the treatment of serious medical conditions,'' he said.
Grapefruit, orange and apple juices were also shown to lower the absorption of the anti-cancer agent etoposide and reduce the effect of some beta-blockers used to treat high blood pressure and prevent heart attacks. Many other drugs are also believed to be affected.

Posted Monday 25th August 2008