Grapefruit and meds can be a bad mix

By Holly Glen Gearhart

Before you take your vitamins, herbal supplements, over-the-counter drugs and especially your prescription drugs, take a moment to read the drug information insert that came with your drugs or supplements, and be sure they won’t react badly with what you plan to drink.

What is in your glass or cup, especially if it contains grapefruit, can render one or more of those supplements, vitamins or prescribed drugs useless, or worse, react negatively and give you a painful stomach ache.

Pharmacists have known for some time that grapefruit, grapefruit juice and supplemental capsules of grapefruit may interact with many substances that you take every day with little or no thought to the risk of a negative interaction. No doubt you have seen the small stickers on a bottle of a prescription drug you had filled or you were told by the pharmacist to not use grapefruit products while taking this or that drug; it also goes for some herbs or supplements.

You may have forgotten exactly what the pharmacist said when you last picked up your script and then rushed off to do more errands.

This is why your prescription is bagged with a product information sheet, and if you lost that you can always call any pharmacy to ask questions about contraindications, or hit the Internet and Google your concern.

Johns Hopkins Medical Institute has extensive information about this issue at www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com, where at least 96 commonly-prescribed drugs are listed which are “contraindicated” or not recommended to combine with that innocent glass of grapefruit juice.