Take your pills only with water

I have heard earlier about the fruit juices and drug interactions but now it is well proven fact that these juices decreases the drug availability ( Bioavailability) and the drug do not act. Grapefruit, orange, and apple juices block drugs commonly used to treat infections, allergy, transplant rejection, cancer, and high blood pressure.

In 1991, David G. Bailey, PhD, and colleagues found that grapefruit juice increased blood concentrations of the blood pressure drug Plendil to possibly dangerous levels. Grapefruit juice, they later learned, slows down a key liver enzyme that clears Plendil -- and about 40 other drugs -- from the body.

Now Bailey reports that grapefruit, orange, and apple juices decrease the absorption of several important medications:

• The allergy drug Allegra, available generically as fexofenadine.
• The antibiotics ciprofloxacin (Cipro, Proquin), levofloxacin , and itraconazole.
• The beta-blocker blood pressure drugs atenolol , celiprolol, and talinolol.
• The transplant-rejection drug cyclosporine (Gengraf, Neoral).
• The cancer chemotherapy etoposide (Toposar, Vepesid).

Most of us wondering why this so happens. A substance in grapefruit juice called naringin seems to be the culprit. The compound apparently blocks OATP1A2, a transporter molecule in the gut, which carries some drugs from the small intestine into the blood. Orange juice contains hesperidin, a naringin-like substance. The culprit in apple juice remains unidentified.
The major concern is loss of benefit of medications essential for the treatment of serious medical conditions.

People should take their pills only with water, advises Bailey, a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. He suggests that people taking medications should check with their doctor or pharmacist before taking medications with fruit juices or whole fruits.

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