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When Life Gives You Grapefruits...

Posted Nov 27, 07 4:30 PM CST in Science & Health 

(Newser) – Doctors have known for years that grapefruit juice can boost the effects of some drugs to toxic levels, but they're now purifying the compounds responsible to make weak medicines stronger. Florida researchers have used the extracts to pump up an anti-HIV drug, reports the Wall Street Journal. "This is definitely a lemons to lemonade story," says one scientist.

Compounds in grapefruit juice destroy an enzyme that would otherwise break down drugs before they get into the bloodstream. But doctors warn many patients against taking certain drugs with grapefruit juice, because that increases blood levels so much that taking one dose "is like taking at least 10 tablets with a glass of water," says a pharmacologist.

Source Wall Street Journal

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Grapefruits are packaged and processed for supermarket distribution.   (KRT Photos)
Scientists theorize that the same interactions that cause grapefruits to interfere with certain medications could be harnessed to make some medication stronger.   (KRT Photos)
Forty-milligram tablets of the drug Lipitor are photographed in Glen Rock, N.J. in a file photo from Nov. 15, 2005. The same interactions with grapefruit that make Lipitor less effective may show chemists...   (Associated Press)
Grapefruit and grapefruit juices can raise normal dosages of certain medications to toxic levels in the bloodstream, but may provide new insight into how to make weak drugs more effective.   (Shutterstock.com)
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