[Sacamuelas]

I've been offline over the last few days...playing catch-up on the site.

While there are many cases of drug interactions with OTC supplements and everyday food items, this particular interaction being discussed in the article is grapefruit specific. The actual adverse drug effects are caused as a byproduct due to your body’s ineffective ability to break down the drugs when ingested with grapefruit. Grapefruit juice inhibits an important function in your body(an intestinal cytochrome P-450 3A4 system).

The CP-450 system is responsible for the first-pass breakdown (aka metabolism) of numerous medications. This decrease in ability to breakdown certain drugs when ingesting grapefruit can cause an increased bioavailability of the drug and a corresponding increase in serum drug levels. In elderly or compromised patients, this increase may be less tolerated than by others and can be dangerous.