Grapefruit Juice abuse

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c palmer - 04 Nov 2005 10:47 GMT

found this in another newsgroup. thought it would be of interest here.

~ curtis
=============

Grapefruit juice had been out of the house for 3, maybe four years since
my spouse switched to a cholesterol drug that interacts with the stuff.
Was in the grocery store last week and they had a great price on cans of
grapefruit juice so bought an armload and started drinking it. We how
have "his" and "hers" juice pitchers.

Problem came to light Sunday evening when I had a massive ( !!!)skin
flush a few minutes after taking the nightly 2000mg of Niaspan -- I had
taken Levitra in the early afternoon so the time difference should have
been sufficient to avoid this. Flush went away but I awoke in a couple
of hours with a gangbusters NE that ENDURED. Minor tent-pole tendencies
during Monday morning shopping rounds.

Took Levitra yesterday afternoon and had same painful skin flush problem
last night with 2 hour NE problem that nearly sent me looking for the
Sudafed pills.

This morning I re-read the Levitra package insert, looking for an
interaction between Levitra and Niaspan. Turns out that Levitra is
eliminated via the liver and a key breakdown enzyme is blocked by
Grapefruit juice. My reaction looks like a tripling or quadrupling of
L's half-life. (and I'm only running 10 mg of Levitra -- now considering
cutting back to 5 mg.) Not feeling any other side effects aside from the
painful skin flush after Niaspan and increased urine flow/volume
(bolstering the note here last week that low daily doses of Cialis would
help BPH.)

I've never taken Cialis but, from the descriptions you guys put forth,
I've stumbled across something akin to Cialis

Here's the question for the bio-med experts in the group. What are the
short term and potential long term effects of slowing down the
metabolism of Levitra in the liver and having this stuff hang around the
body for more hours/days ????

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

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I. P. Freely - 04 Nov 2005 17:22 GMT

I've used grapefruit juice DELIBERATELY for years to enhance the efficiency
of my statin (for cholesterol). When I switched from GJ to Gatorade this
summer, my cholesterol went up; I expect it to go down again now that I'm
back on GJ (about $1.70 per half-gallon jug for Langer's Diet Ruby Red GJ).
The elimination competition btw GJ and statins (and several other drugs) has
been proven and documented since the 1980s; it's right there in the PDF, the
drug interaction charts, and the patient advice paperwork in my statin
package, but my idiot doctor -- the same jerk who ignored my PSA for three
years -- not only didn't know that, but refused to even open his PDF to
verify it. That was one of the reasons I fired him; he prescribed the damned
med yet refused to read its warnings.

He sneered that if I'm worried about it, wash down the statin with some
other fluid. Little problem: GJ impedes the elimination of some meds,
including statins, when taken within three DAYS of the med.

Medical science is even proposing GJ as a way of letting people use less
medication, because GJ is far cheaper than statins. So people whose
GJ-competing meds were dosed without taking GJ consumption into
consideration are at risk of overreacting to those meds if they drink GJ.
(OJ is not a problem, it doesn't use the same enzyme for its elimination.)
The effect of consuming GJ in the same period of time one is taking the
susceptible meds is to raise the amount of the med in the bloodstream,
producing the same main and side effects as taking larger doses of the med.
i.e., GJ with those meds is the same as OD'ing on them.

To get the list of meds that DO use the same enzyme, Google something like
grapefruit juice medications interaction; there's a significant list of
significant meds on the lists.

I.P.

> found this in another newsgroup. thought it would be of interest here.
>
[quoted text clipped - 40 lines]
> invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
> http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

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ron - 04 Nov 2005 18:05 GMT

This is an interesting topic. While grapefruit juice lessens the
activity of the CYP-3A - P-450 metabolic clearance mechanism in your
liver that is responsible for removing "stuff" from your system (so
Avodart for PCa, statins, benzodiazepine based sleep medications and
tranquilizers, various cardiacs meds and antibiotics will show an
increased activity), some substances like St. John's Wort have the
opposite effect on P-450 pathway and can cause meds to be cleared from
the system more rapidly than desired. Drugs cleared in an accelerated
manner by SJW include TAXANES, amitriptyline, cyclosporine, digoxin,
fexofenadine, indinavir, methadone, midazolam, nevirapine,
phenprocoumon, simvastatin, tacrolimus, theophylline and warfarin, oral
contraceptives (yikes) and others...Best wishes and good health, Ron

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>found this in another newsgroup. thought it would be of interest here.
>
[quoted text clipped - 40 lines]
>invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
>http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

Signature

http://www.bzpharmacy.com/cialis.php

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