Cholesterol Pills and Grapefruit Don't Mix

[Guest guest]

[Maybe the solution is to not take the statins!]

 

Cholesterol Pills and Grapefruit Don't Mix

 

Tue Nov 2, 6:02 AM ET

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Taking certain cholesterol-lowering drugs at the same

time as grapefruit juice can increase the risk of potentially

life-threatening muscle toxicity, British regulators warned on Tuesday.

 

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said the risk

was greatest with Merck & Co Inc's Zocor, or simvastatin, which recently

went on sale without prescription in Britain, and Pfizer Inc's Lipitor

(news - web sites).

 

The problem occurs because grapefruit contains a chemical that

inactivates a liver enzyme involved in drug metabolism. As a result,

regular consumption of grapefruit juice can lead to excessively high

levels of medicine in the blood.

 

The risk of serious muscle problems also increases when these

cholesterol pills, or statins, are taken along with some other drugs,

including HIV (news - web sites) protease inhibitors, the agency said in

an update to doctors.

 

The grapefruit hazard is not significant for other statins, such as

Novartis AG's Lescol, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's Pravachol and

AstraZeneca Plc's Crestor.

 

But muscle toxicity is still a recognized adverse reaction with high

doses of all statins, leading in rare cases to rhabdomyolysis -- a

condition in which muscle fibers break down and are released into the

circulation, damaging the kidney.

 

Worries about rhabdomyolysis have been a particular issue for Crestor,

the most potent of the anti-cholesterol drugs, with U.S. consumer group

Public Citizen calling for its withdrawal following a handful of cases.

 

To date, Britain's Committee on Safety of Medicines has received 10

reports of suspected rhabdomyolysis with Crestor, the agency said.

 

AstraZeneca recently advised that all patients should start on the

initial dose of 10 mg of Crestor once daily and move up to a higher dose

only after a 4-week trial of 10 mg.

 

Despite this cautious approach, the Anglo-Swedish group says all the

evidence suggests that Crestor's safety profile is in line with that of

other marketed statins.