BBC Morning Live regular Dr Xand van Tulleken is issuing a serious warning to those who take medication. He cautions that consuming certain foods alongside medication could make it ineffective – and many people are likely taking it incorrectly as well.
Dr. Xand reveals that a whopping ’80 per cent of people in the UK who take regular medication are not following the exact prescription’ – including himself.
Focusing on fruit, he warns that people need to be particularly careful with grapefruit and anything containing it, such as jam or juice. He explains: “If you’re eating grapefruit and you take drugs regularly, you should definitely have an alertness and a knowledge of what’s going on because grapefruit can be dangerous.”
Delving into the science, he notes that in the wild, grapefruit’s primary goal is survival and seed dispersal. To achieve this, the fruit produces chemicals that deter consumption by the wrong animals. As a result, he said ‘it interferes with an enzyme that breaks down drugs’, potentially altering how medication is processed in the body.
“When we take medication our bodies break them down so we can excrete them harmlessly after they’ve worked – so grapefruit can either stop breaking down the drugs so you got a very high dose and that can have quite toxic effects,” he said.
“Sometimes it can even have the effect of not breaking the drug into the molecule that’s actually active in your body so you can get a toxic effect and the drug isn’t even giving you the benefit as well.”
What medication is affected by grapefruit?
- Statins
- Blood pressure medication
- Psychiatric medication
- Immunosuppressants
- antiarrhythmics
Discussing these medications, he explains that the fruit can impact ‘all kinds of drugs’. Even half a glass, he warns, can be enough ‘to alter the way your body processes the drug for several days’. He advises that ‘if you’re on a regular medication check with your pharmacist check with your GP before you eat a grapefruit’.
Is blood pressure medication affected?
He points out that warfarin, a commonly used blood thinner, has vitamin K as its antidote. As the expert explains, vitamin K is found in many foods that are commonly recommended for a healthy diet.
Vitamin K is found in:
- lettuce
- olive oil
- spinach
- chickpeas
- avocado
- egg yolk
- green, leafy vegetables
- blue cheese
- broccoli
- seaweed
With this in mind, he says try and not have a lot of this in bulk and instead ‘spread it out’ have a little bit each day, noting that consistency is key.
How to take medication correctly
- Swallow properly and lean forward
- Don’t crush our alter tablets
- Don’t take hot drinks – try room temp tap water
- Avoid dairy