Beware the grapefruit diet
I was surprised to learn that there are people still doing the grapefruit diet. It’s not that it’s not a good diet; in fact, there is some indication that it might help people lose weight. What I am surprised about is that they are not aware that grapefruit interferes with many medications.
In the 1990s, there was a fad for the grapefruit diet. It was supposed to be good for the heart – you eat one half of a grapefruit before every meal. Though the mechanism of weight loss was never fully explained, there is a theory that it prevents fats from being absorbed. Whether or not this theory is correct, we do know that grapefruit prevents many medications from being absorbed, most of them being heart medications. Pharmacists will usually put a label on the bottle saying to avoid grapefruit. At least, avoid taking it with grapefruit juice. It is unclear whether or not grapefruit can be ingested at any time while on medication. Because it blocks the absorption of medications, those medications will be ineffective.
But grapefruit also has other effects on the body’s metabolism, which may affect the way medications are processed. Some of these effects may not become known until someone has a complication, unfortunately. Therefore, it is always best to consult your doctor before undertaking the grapefruit diet, or any other diet for that matter. It can be difficult to know what you can and cannot eat when taking medications, but your doctor should be able to give you a general overview of what to avoid.
