Is Your Diet Affecting Your Medications?
Category
There are a variety of things that can cause our medications to not work correctly. Not taking your medicine as prescribed is a major reason why your medication may not be as effective or work as intended, but that’s not the only possible reason. You may be taking other prescriptions, supplements, or over-the-counter drugs that might affect your prescriptions’ effects; foods can also interact with your meds.
Just because there are foods on this list that you may eat doesn’t mean they will interact with your medication— always check your prescription label and talk to your care team or pharmacists before changing your diet or medications.
Common foods that interact with medications
Alcohol
prolongs the effects of insulin or oral diabetic pills and can lead to low blood sugar. Drinking alcohol with moderate pain relievers like acetaminophen can lead to a higher chance of severe liver damage and alcohol with antihistamines like Benadryl can increase drowsiness.
Dairy products
can decrease antibiotic absorption.
Aged foods
high in tyramine like aged cheeses, wines, and fava beans can affect MAOIs.
Grapefruit
and grapefruit juice can change the way the body absorbs cholesterol lowering drugs and calcium channel blockers for high blood pressure in the blood, which can lead to over absorption and greater risk of side effects
Green leafy vegetables
that are high in vitamin K can decrease how well some blood thinners like warfarin and aspirin thin the blood.
Licorice
can increase your risk of lanoxin toxicity if you are taking digoxin for congestive heart failure or abnormal heart rhythms. Licorice can also affect blood pressure medications.
How and when you eat can also change how your medications work, so always take medications as prescribed.
