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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
You’ve no doubt heard that grapefruit juice can greatly increase the effects of some drugs. Even to a dangerous degree. Pharmacologist David Bailey made that discovery almost 20 years ago. A substance in the juice blocks an enzyme that breaks down the drugs. Now Bailey’s back with a fresh finding—grapefruit juice, orange juice, apple juice and other fruit juices can also severely decrease the absorption of certain drugs. He announced this discovery August 19th at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia.
Some of the drugs that have their dosages effectively decreased by various juices include medications that fight heart disease, infection and even the rejection of transplants. Key ingredients in the juices appear to block a molecule that carries drugs from the small intestine into the bloodstream. So a lot of the medication gets flushed out without ever reaching its target. Bailey says, "This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure we'll find more and more drugs that are affected this way." So when taking medications, a sip of H2O is probably the way to go.
—Steve Mirsky
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9 Comments
Add Commentvarious chemical substances are included in juices ,which might be very difficult to determine exactly. They may react with the ingredients in the drugs and cause great danger on us while we are not aware of that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's why I always prefer pure water.
It has been well known that Cranberry juice can block certain drugs 0 like Ketamine. This illustrates just how little our medical industry knows about drug interactions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit is better to take the medicine with a cup of salty water
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets see. Fruit Juice, and a pile of drugs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, fruit juice is the problem. What a coutry of junkies.
And, can anyone try to extend this result to beneficial effects of fruit juices, such as blocking the uptake of deleterious compounds from the small intestine, say, like in Celiac and related diseases?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA glass of H�0 plus a pill of Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) (for headache) with an empty stomach = gastritis. The defect in this entire thing is so philosophical... They, (who?) want us very pure minds, like hippies. Not like wholly ones. Nevertheless, if I take a pill with water, pure it should be, and eat solid bits of fruits or, sin of sins, a chunk of chocolate, oh, infinites skies, what happens? If any recommendation has to take place about consumption of remedies, the Prescribing Information with its restricted instructions is a very fine place to accommodate those preoccupations. However carefulness and soup of chicken not do harm for nobody, it is said from the grandmother lore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy salty water?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs salty water to take medicine one grandmother lore? Is it? If so, it is not negligible. Ours minds are so affected for that type of lore! However, it is a very question: why salty water?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSurvival of the fittest
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