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Human Rights  » Dietary Supplements and Prescription Drugs - What You Should

Dietary Supplements and Prescription Drugs - What You Should

Article:

So much news is made of the occurrence and prevalence of

diseases such as cancer and AIDS; and of viruses such as Bird

Flu and SARS that one could be easily be mistaken in thinking

that humans are a species at risk. Although some of these

possible pandemics are a sobering thought, you may take solace

in the fact that we have a smaller chance of getting, and a

better chance of beating, a damning diagnosis than ever before.

In part, this has been achieved through the dual advance of the

pharmaceutical and nutritional sciences: we have an arsenal of

both nutraceuticals and drugs for prevention, treatment and cure.

At the last big count, 7.5% of Americans aged 18 to 44 take 3 or

more prescribed drugs, this rises to a huge 47.6% in those aged

65 or over. At the same time over a third of the US population

uses dietary supplements daily and over 20% have used some form

of natural product in the past 12 months. When these statistics

are put together it would be safe to assume that many people are

on at least one drug and nutraceuticals at the same time. What

is even more worrying is that an estimated 70% of patients fail

to tell their doctor they are undergoing alternative treatment

for their problems. Problems like depression, asthma, diabetes,

arthritis, allergies, flu and high blood pressure are now so

well characterized and supported by drugs that physicians may

feel less inclined to investigate the condition, or the person,

further.

Side effects of drugs are well known with huge legal cases such

as Vioxx bringing the industry and the regulation process into

the spotlight. Drug-drug interactions are also well documented

and millions of dollars are spent on research and testing to

find out exactly what can, and can't, be used concomitantly.

However, when it comes to nutraceuticals, few people have much,

if any, knowledge about what happens in the body when you take

these with prescription medicine. And with scant formal training

for herbal products or nutraceuticals in medical school, your

doctor may be more in the dark than you are.

Drug Supplements Interactions - Two Rights Can Make a Wrong

Many drugs are cleared from the body by certain enzymes in the

liver, especially those from a certain family called cytochrome

P450s. These enzymes may also be responsible for breaking down

other substances, such as alcohol, nutrients and herbal

products. These particular enzymes can be held up by breaking

down a nutraceutical you have ingested, while the drug will be

circulating in your bloodstream a lot longer than the physician

had planned. If you are taking multiple doses of the drug then

it can build up to dangerous levels, and if the drug has a

narrow window between good effects and harm then overdose is a

distinct possibility.

A good example is Digoxin, a cardiovascular drug. If Digoxin is

taken with licorice, the levels of the drug in the bloodstream

can be increased four fold, the effects and side effects will be

increased dramatically to a possibly lethal endpoint.

Drugs and Nutraceuticals can also have a synergic effect when

taken together. They may produce the same reaction in your body

or interact in some way to produce unexpected and undesirable

results. This can happen with the anti-anxiety drug, Alprazolam

or Xanax. When Xanax is taken with the popular herb Kava, also

used for anxiety, they can have a drastic effect upon the

central nervous system. The reasons are not fully understood but

at least one person has been hospitalized with severe mental

problems by taking this combination.

Nutraceuticals may also have the opposite effect on these P450

enzymes and they can have what is called an "inductive effect"

whereby the nutraceutical boosts the activity of the enzyme to

higher than normal levels. The enzyme then breaks down and

clears the drug from the body much faster than was expected by

your physician. Because the dose of a drug is a very exact

calculation, a prescribed amount is designed to stay in the body

for a time long enough to be effective. If the drug is cleared

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early it may have a reduced effect or no effect at all.

Further Information on Drug Dietary Supplement Interactions

You should first and foremost tell your doctor and pharmacist

what you are taking. Unfortunately, there is not a high level of

understanding in the medical or pharmaceutical world into herbs

and nutraceuticals although some research has been conducted

into the popular herbs such as St. John's Wort, Ginseng, Gingko,

Cayenne, Saw Palmetto and Valerian. A dietician may have better

knowledge than your doctor but there are also a number of

sources of information concerning prescription drug-dietary

supplement interactions on the internet below.

In addition to these resources, one online dietary supplements

company, Mitamins, offers a free drug interaction checker before

you buy. The website allows the design of a custom multivitamin

according to the prescription drugs you are taking. There is

also a good library where you can review the latest scientific

knowledge on your drug or nutraceutical.

The Merck Manual is a comprehensive resource of up to date

medical information and has some good primers on interactions as

well as in depth analysis.

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec02/ch019/ch019a.html

The National Institute of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements

has a number of good fact sheets on different supplements

http://ods.od.nih.gov/Health_Information/Information_About_Indivi

dual_Dietary_Supplements.aspx

Mitamins is an online retailer of custom multivitamins and has

over 1,000 formulas to support everything from Alzheimer's, ADD

and Ageing to Weight Loss and Cancer. These formulas can be

safety checked and adjusted for interaction with over 1,600

drugs. http://www.mitamins.com/

About the author:

Mark is a qualified chemist and writer. He has worked in both

the drug development and the dietary supplement industries.