the problem is compounded by the fact that many patients — and even doctors and pharmacists — aren’t aware of the risks and the number of drugs with this interaction keeps rising, says david bailey, a pharmacologist and scientist at the
lawson health research institute
in london, ontario, and lead author of the paper.
“there are a lot of people out there who love their grapefruit, especially people 45 and older, and these are the individuals who are commonly prescribed drugs,” he says. “the interaction is very drug-specific, so it’s important to create awareness and let people know there are alternatives you can take.”
bailey was the first researcher to discover that grapefruit causes potentially harmful interactions with some medications, and he now consults with the
canadian pharmacists association
to track and update the list of drugs that share the grapefruit interaction.
there are now 128 drugs on the list — which is available to all healthcare professionals in canada — and includes treatments for heart conditions, anti-cancer agents and central-nervous-system drugs used to treat pain and schizophrenia.
other citrus can also produce this reaction with medication. getty
yes, even a little bit can cause a big problem
for the widely prescribed high-blood pressure drug, felodipine, (also known by several other brand names, including cabren, cardioplen xl and felendil xl) for example, “if people take one tablet with a glass of grapefruit juice, it’s like they’re taking five tablets,” bailey says.