How Does Grapefruit Seed Extract Interact With Statin Drugs?
Grapefruit seed extract is thought to be a way to lower blood pressure naturally. It can interact with cholesterol-fighting statin drugs by increasing the amounts of those medications in the bloodstream. Some recent studies show that grapefruit seed extract may actually interfere with the body’s ability to absorb some blood pressure medications. And that is the key to a potentially dangerous interaction, as demonstrated in evidence gathered from studying interactions between statins and grapefruit juice. Specific statin interaction Not all statins are affected by grapefruit juice. Statins found to be adversely affected by consumption of grapefruit juice are: • atorvastatin (Lipitor) • lovastatin (Mevacor) • simvastatin (Zocor) Statins that do not demonstrate the same interaction issues to those drugs listed above are: • rosuvastatin (Crestor) • pravastatin (Pravachol) • fluvastatin (Lescol) According to some scientists, this could be because those statins aren’t broken down by the same
