The amazing, yet ‘forbidden fruit’ for millions who take certain drugs

For the millions of people who take cholesterol-lowering drugs, grapefruit is a no-no.

It can block an enzyme that breaks down drugs like Lipitor, causing extremely dangerous levels of these meds to be released into your bloodstream.

And grapefruit can interact with lots of other drugs too. The FDA even has a consumer alert page listing some of them.

But especially for those who take statins, having to boot this amazing citrus fruit out of their diet is a darn shame.

And that’s not just because grapefruit is high in vitamin C, potassium, vitamin A, biotin, and vitamin B and lycopene (which protects against prostate cancer and cell damage).

But because grapefruit, especially the red kind, can actually lower your cholesterol.

In a study, people who had high cholesterol and stopped taking drugs like Lipitor, but ate a red grapefruit a day had “notably” lower total cholesterol. And that included the “bad” LDL kind, too.

And those in the study who got the red grapefruit also had lower triglycerides. So it looks like grapefruit can have other heart-healthy benefits as well.

Now researchers aren’t sure exactly what gives grapefruit this potent cholesterol-lowering effect. But it very well might be the same powerful component that can cause all those drug interactions.

And recently, in a study done at the University of California, researchers who gave mice grapefruit juice (mice will drink grapefruit juice!) not only lost weight, but had better blood sugar levels.

In fact, the reduction in blood sugar achieved with grapefruit was similar to that of the common type 2 diabetes drug metformin.

So here we’ve got an amazing food, one that can lower your blood sugar the same as an Rx drug, keeps cholesterol and triglycerides down, and yet for millions it’s a forbidden fruit.

Maybe that wasn’t an apple in the Garden of Eden after all…

Sources:
“Grapefruit juice and medicine may not mix” FDA Consumer Health Information, fda.gov