Sunday, May 11, 2008

Grapefruit Juice and Medication Can Be a Dangerous Mix




Grapefruit malleable can be perilous contained by means of continual of culture lying on persuaded medication, nurse researchers remind doctors, nurse, and one and all who take on prescription and enjoy grapefruit juice, in a treatise in the American Journal of Nursing, a memoir of the American Nurses Association.



Amy Karch, R.N., M.S., of the School of Nursing at the University of Rochester Medical Center tittle-tattle on a man from a northern conditions who moved to Florida for the winter - one of tens of thousands of "snowbirds" who front south all winter - and begin drinking two to three goggles of grapefruit juice each hours of daylight. The man become critically queasy subsequently of an relationship concerning grapefruit juice and his cholesterol-lowering medication.



Karch's paper, "The Grapefruit Challenge: The juice inhibit a requisite enzyme, beside imaginably homicidal arise," appear in the December 2004 feature of the journal.



Interactions between grapefruit juice and medications enjoy drawn out be reputable. Last year, the Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics excited an total issue to grapefruit juice and the dangerous medication interactions that can result. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration pressure all prospective interval drugs that be analysis to interact together with this enzyme set-up to be tested for interactions with grapefruit juice. And a alarm in the order of grapefruit juice be integrated in the "food-drug interactions" that come with dozens of medications. Nevertheless, Karch say several health-care professionals and patients don't know about the potential.



"The projected of drug interactions with grapefruit juice have been out within a long frequency, but best people of belatedly aren't mindful of it," says Karch, a clinical dangle out professor of nursing.



"There is by means of a result by a long chalk statistics bombard people all the time, that a group of people may have hear this but forgotten it. But the worries can be life-threatening." The magnanimous profile in Karch's article have lofty cholesterol and other risk factor for cardiac bug. The gp deposit the patient on atorvastatin (Lipitor), and the patient began diet and exercise. Two months after the patient supervise to Florida for the winter, he rapidly had muscle agony, fatigue and frenzy, and went to the emergency legroom. The patient done awake going into kidney washout and ultimately breathe your ultimate.



The simply main fix in the person's lifestyle had been that, upon arriving in Florida, he began picking grapefruit rotten a tree on the panel and drinking two or three glasses of fresh grapefruit juice both day.



Karch, an consultant on drug interactions, explain that grapefruit juice is one of the sustenance most potential to make happen problems with drugs, because it is metabolized by like enzyme in the liver that intrusion fluff many drugs. The cytochrome P-450 3A4 enzyme breaks down grapefruit juice into no-frills components for article, just resembling it breaks down dozens of medications. Karch says when the system is overloaded, the grapefruit juice can "swamp" the system, keeping the liver bouncing and blocking it from breaking down drugs and other substances.



Drugs that splurge the same pathway and interact with grapefruit juice target numerous of the most normal disorder problems doctors see today. The ripple consists of greater than 50 medications, with some drugs previously own to immoderation high cholesterol, sorrow, high blood strain, cancer, depression, pain, impotence, and allergies.



Karch transcription that interactions with grapefruit juice are okay set and eminent among drug researchers, and that an becoming warning sign is included with each prescription.



Nevertheless, she says that many patients, nurse and doctors aren't aware of the interactions or the potential solemn consequences, and that many people fall through to read the warning label about drug-food interactions.



The consequences of an interaction depend on the drug enmeshed. A facility of self on an anti-depressant may possibly have moreover much or too trivial drive, depending on the specific medication. Someone on antibiotics might conclude up with diarrhea or could be in pain longer than conventional because the some drugs won't work as well as they should. A heart patient might not receive the lower blood pressure that a medication should deliver, or the heart's rhythm might become intermittent if an anti-arrhythmia drug can't put into practice its undertaking. The juice could also affect the usefulness of a woman's hormone-replacement-therapy medication.



The most despotic effects are likely with some cholesterol-lowering medications, Karch says. While the liver devote its undercooked materials to grapefruit juice, the medication could put up capable of dangerous even, cause a stoppage of the body's muscles and even kidney failure. This is likely what happen to the patient contest in the article, Karch says.



To snub such problems, Karch repeat what doctors and nurses nickname their patients day after day: Read a medication's warning label decisively. If an interaction with grapefruit juice is at all, the patient should avoid drinking the juice until speaking with his or her doctor. In some cases it might be possible to switch a patient to a deviating drug scarce the risk; in other cases the patient might simply have got to rebuff grapefruit juice.



The study be sustain by grant from the National Institute on Aging. It was conducted at the Yale Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.



Karch's paper is the most up-to-date in a column the journal devotes to "practice snag," where on ground nurses report unusual clinical problems and Karch look into how common the riddle might be.



Last year she also reported that nurses had found that some type of buffalo stockpile patch could take into task afire when patients receive alluring resonance imaging (MRI) scan.



Drugs that Interact with Grapefruit Juice: (from the December 2004 issue of the American Journal of Nursing) Antibiotics: clarithromycin, erythromycin, troleandomycin Anxiolytics: alprazolam, buspirone, midazolam, triazolam Antiarrhythmics: amiodarone, quinidine Anticoagulant: warfarin Antiepileptic: carbamazepine Antifungal: itraconazole Anthelmintic: albendazole Antihistamine: fexofenadine Antineoplastics: cyclophosphamide, etoposide, ifosfamide, tamoxifen, vinblastine, vincristine Antitussive: dextromethorphan Antivirals: amprenavir, indinavir, nelfinavir, ritonavir, saquinavir Benign prostatic hyperplasia remedy: finasteride -blockers: carvedilol Calcium walkway blockers: diltiazem, felodipine, nicardipine, nifedipine, nimodipine, nisoldipine, verapamil Erectile dysfunction drugs: sildenafil, tadalafil Hormone standby: cortisol, estradiol, methylprednisolone, progesterone, testosterone Immunosuppressants: cyclosporine, sirolimus, tacrolimus HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors: atorvastatin, fluvastatin, lovastatin, simvastatin Opioids: alfentanil, fentanyl, sufentanil Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: fluvoxamine, sertraline Xanthine: theophylline Tom Rickey tom_rickey@urmc.rochester.eduUniversity of Rochester Medical Center




Yesterday I found interesting things about mens health



No comments: