Please Read This First

In case of an emergency, please call 911 or ambulance or go to the nearest emergency room.

This blog is for information only. Dr. Dave will not respond to comments.

The information you obtain at Brazosdoctors.com or this blog is not and not intended to be a medical advice. You should consult a medical doctor for individual advice regarding your health. The use of the Internet for communications with the doctors will not establish any MD-patient relationship and messages containing confidential information, personal health or emergency should not be sent to the website or the blog.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Grapefruit juice and statins

Grapefruit contains a group of compounds called furanocoumarins.
Once we drink juice,the CYP3A4enzymes start working breaking down the chemicals.
Medications that are broken down by CYP3A4 are Simvastatin,atorvastatin,viagra,cialis,Levitras,coumadin( warfarin),codeine.
Drinking orange juice or water does not affect this enzyme.
A genetic test can be done to see if CYP3A4 is working slow or fast in you.
If the grapefruit juice and the medications listed above are taken at different times atleast 8 to 10 hours apart then it does not matter.
If there are more concerns of medication toxicity with grapefruit juice then reduce the medication dose by half or even you can skip a day of medication.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)