grapefruit juice

Sliced pink grapefruit

Grapefruit juice is the fruit juice coming from grapefruits. It is rich with Vitamin C and is very sour. Variations include pink grapefruit juice and ruby red grapefruit juice.^[1][2]

Drug interactions

Main article: List of drugs affected by grapefruit

Grapefruit juice, and grapefruit in general, is a potent inhibitor of the Cytochrome_P450 enzyme CYP3A4, which can impact the metabolism of a variety of drugs, increasing their bioavailability.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} In some cases, this can lead to a fatal interaction with drugs like Astemizole.^[4] The effect of grapefruit juice with regard to drug absorption was originally discovered in 1989. However, the effect became well-publicized after being responsible for a number of deaths due to overdosing on medication.^[8]

Breast Cancer Link

A recent study published in the July 2007 edition of the British Journal of Cancer reported that eating grapefruit every day could raise the risk of developing breast cancer by almost a third. The Study found that in the test subjects, 50,000 post-menopausal women, eating just a quarter of a grapefruit daily raised the risk by up to 30%. It is believed that the fruit boosts the levels of estrogen, which in turn increases the risk of developing the disease. ^[9]

See also

• Grapefruit
• Grapefruit spoon

References

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