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Campaign aims to warn consumers about foods and medicines that don't mix WASHINGTON (November 19, 1998 01:45 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Like grapefruit juice? Check your medicine cabinet before drinking it. It tops a list of everyday foods that can cause side effects, even life-threatening problems, when taken together with certain medications. Concerned that Americans don't know that foods sometimes interact dangerously with medicine, the National Consumers League began a campaign Wednesday to tell consumers exactly what foods and drugs do not mix. "You open up any bathroom cabinet in America and you'll see the same thing: medicine, and lots of it," said Linda Golodner, president of the National Consumers League. But eat the wrong food with certain medicines, she said, and "you may end up in the emergency room." Some 85 million Americans use prescription drugs, and countless others use over-the-counter medicines. Doctors are supposed to warn patients what drugs not to mix. But potential problems from mixing medicine with food, vitamins, even caffeine, aren't as well publicized. So the consumers league, with help from the Food and Drug Administration, published a detailed list of foods certain patients should avoid. Among them: --Never drink grapefruit juice less than two hours before or five hours after taking heart drugs called calcium channel blockers, like Procardia. The mix sometimes kills. --Grapefruit juice taken with cyclosporin, which fights organ rejection in transplant recipients, can cause confusion and trembling. --High doses of Vitamin E thin blood. Taken by heart patients on the popular blood thinner Coumadin, the mix increases the risk of serious bleeding. --Coumadin users also shouldn't splurge on foods high in Vitamin K, like broccoli, spinach and turnip greens, which reduce the drug's effectiveness. --Antidepressants called MAO inhibitors can cause a potentially fatal blood pressure rise when taken with foods high in the chemical tyramine, such as cheese and sausage. [note from jp: this does not apply to selegiline; see pd list archives] --Drinking coffee or colas with certain antibiotics such as Cipro or the ulcer drugs Tagamet, Zantac and Pepcid can increase caffeine levels, causing the jitters and stomach irritation. --Don't overload on bananas or take potassium supplements with heart drugs called ACE inhibitors, such as Capoten and Vasotec. It can cause harmful potassium buildup. --Too much caffeine increases the dose of theophylline, a bronchodilator, causing nausea, palpitations or seizures. --Grapefruit juice should never be taken with antihistamines, either prescription versions such as Claritin and Allegra or over-the-counter types such as Benadryl. It can cause serious heart problems. While grapefruit juice has the bad reputation, eating grapefruit may cause the same interactions, said Michael Bottorff, a University of Cincinnati pharmacist. Researchers have found that grapefruit juice, for unknown reasons, enables drugs to be absorbed into the body more easily. While this might eventually lead to smaller drug dosages, the problem addressed Wednesday was the possibility of overdoses when people take the prescribed amount of pharmaceuticals. No one knows how often mixing drugs with the wrong foods causes problems, said doctor Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's drug division. Few doctors report the interactions, few consumers know diet could have caused a side effect -- and some interactions have only recently been discovered. "Both health care professional education as well as consumer education is needed," Bottorff added. He urged patients to report possible drug side effects to a health worker immediately, but said people also should use common sense. Grapefruit's effect, for example, "depends on how much grapefruit they take and how often. Half a grapefruit for breakfast once a week might not be enough to cause a problem." (For a free copy of "Food & Drug Interactions," call 1-800-639-8140 or go to <http://www.nclnet.org> ) By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Copyright 1998 Nando Media Copyright 1998 The Associated Press janet paterson - 51/41/37 - almonte/ontario/canada http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/ [log in to unmask]