Grapefruit Interaction

I'm eating two deep red grapefruit everyday, I know it interacts with some drugs but I've totally forgot the potential risk of possible interaction with even supplements (if any). Here is my stack:

ALCAR
R-Lipoic Acid
SAMe
Rhodiola Rosea
Ashwagandha
PharmaGABA or GABA
Melatonin
L-Trytophan
L-Theanine
Glycine
Taurine
L-Glutamine
Protein Powder Isolate
Creatine
Piracetam
Aniracetam
Modafinil
CDP-Choline
Alpha GPC
Centrophenoxine
DHA/EPA
Phosphatidylserine
Multi Minerals
Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, K
Jarrow CarotenAll
LEF Life Extension Mix
LEF Whole Grape Extract
Green Tea Extract
Cinnamon
Chromium Picolinate
Magnesium Malate
Magnesium Orotate
Lithium Orotate
Calcium Citrate
Opti Zinc
Selenium
Potassium Citrate
Silicon (BioSil)

Does anybody know of any possible interaction with grapefruit? Thanks in advance.

Edited by cougar, 17 January 2010 - 01:47 AM.

Irrespective of drug interactions you should considerably cut down on your stack. You shouldn't be supplementing that many vitamins and minerals, assuming you consume at least some real foods of more than two colours. Irrespective of drug interactions you may be causing harm to your health.

Edited by kismet, 17 January 2010 - 02:16 AM.

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I'm eating two deep red grapefruit everyday, I know it interacts with some drugs but I've totally forgot the potential risk of possible interaction with even supplements (if any). Here is my stack:

ALCAR
R-Lipoic Acid
SAMe
Rhodiola Rosea
Ashwagandha
PharmaGABA or GABA
Melatonin
L-Trytophan
L-Theanine
Glycine
Taurine
L-Glutamine
Protein Powder Isolate
Creatine
Piracetam
Aniracetam
Modafinil
CDP-Choline
Alpha GPC
Centrophenoxine
DHA/EPA
Phosphatidylserine
Multi Minerals
Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, K
Jarrow CarotenAll
LEF Life Extension Mix
LEF Whole Grape Extract
Green Tea Extract
Cinnamon
Chromium Picolinate
Magnesium Malate
Magnesium Orotate
Lithium Orotate
Calcium Citrate
Opti Zinc
Selenium
Potassium Citrate
Silicon (BioSil)

Does anybody know of any possible interaction with grapefruit? Thanks in advance.

UPDATE:
The following three have been missed from my stack in the previous post:
Jarrow Probiotic
NOW Digestive Enzyme
LEF Co-Q10

Edited by cougar, 17 January 2010 - 03:49 AM.

Irrespective of drug interactions you should considerably cut down on your stack. You shouldn't be supplementing that many vitamins and minerals, assuming you consume at least some real foods of more than two colours. Irrespective of drug interactions you may be causing harm to your health.

I never realized that I was taking so many supplements until I listed them out. I'm also wondering if my stack has been too large. I should mention that I cycled between SAMe and Rhodiola Rosea, also, when I take LEF Life Extension Mix I don't take any other vitamin and minerals. However, this stack still looks too large, in your opinion what should I cut? I really don't know what should be removed from this stack.

Edited by cougar, 17 January 2010 - 03:57 AM.

grapefruit, I think, is an inhibitor of CYP450 of the liver, meaning that drugs or agents will have a more potent effect since their breakdown by CYP450 is hindered....

Edited by medicineman, 17 January 2010 - 04:01 AM.

grapefruit, I think, is an inhibitor of CYP450 of the liver, meaning that drugs or agents will have a more potent effect since their breakdown by CYP450 is hindered....

Thank you for your reply, is there any risk of grapefruit interaction in my stack? Also, do you think this stack is too big which could be harmful to my health?

Medicineman's warning is correct. I also heard that grapefruit could have some estrogenic effect. Though, I don't think there are any known interactions between the supps you are taking, but I would probably cut out some of the herbs and nootropics. Unless you are experiencing a truly noticeable subjective enhancement with rhodiola rosea, ashwagandha, modafinil, aniracetam, etc then I would say dump them since they aren't terribly well studied. That said, your stack seems pretty good, assuming your timings are well considered. Cost effectiveness is probably the main thing you want to reconsider.

Some things seem to enhance or negate each other.

SAMe and Folate, Zinc and Copper, Amino Acids in combination with other Amino Acids, and so forth. So be extra careful with these.

Lipoic Acid has had some questions about it recently. R-Lipoic acid is also quite expensive. I would consider dumping the supps that are expensive and questionable and diverting the money to good causes. Donating to anti-aging research would have a higher utility from a life extension perspective than buying R-lipoic acid. Though vitamin D, being so cheap, effective, and well studied, has very high utility. (you could also consider switching to regular Lipoic Acid)

LEF Mix already has lots of selenium in it, so taking extra doesn't make much sense. Also, if you are taking a full dose of the LEF Mix and taking Jarrow's CarotenALL, that is quite a lot of vitamin A.

CoQ10 is another very expensive supp. Perhaps if you are old and rich it makes some sense, though I think taking all the other stuff probably covers enough bases and thus makes CoQ10 supps redundant. Young people especially have little need for CoQ10.

Centrophexine and citicholine are redundant, and centrophexine is more expensive and probably not worth it.

I don't think you are doing anything dangerous though. Most people are getting just as large of a chemical cocktail per day as you.... between pesticides, pharmaceuticals, smog, smoking, xenoestrogens from leached plastic, etc etc etc. Our livers are pretty good at filtering out toxins. Best not to chronically overload it, but you are probably healthier than most considering your stack and your health-consciousness.

Edited by progressive, 17 January 2010 - 05:11 AM.

I don't think you are doing anything dangerous though. Most people are getting just as large of a chemical cocktail per day as you.... between pesticides, pharmaceuticals, smog, smoking, xenoestrogens from leached plastic, etc etc etc. Our livers are pretty good at filtering out toxins. Best not to chronically overload it, but you are probably healthier than most considering your stack and your health-consciousness.

I have to disagree with this. The OP is taking milligram to gram quantities of a number of substances, some of which are not terrifically well studied. I don't think anyone is getting that kind of dose from environmental sources. Some of us get a few nanograms or possibly micrograms of this and that, I'll grant. I take a couple pharmaceuticals but (unlike many supplements) I at least have a very good idea of what they contain, and I've considered the risk/reward tradeoff. Anyone who smokes is making a choice to do something bad for their health, and I'll leave them out of the equation. Second hand smoke is now very easy to avoid. Smog in America is WAY better than it used to be. It's not a non-problem yet, but I grew up in the LA basin in the 60's & 70's, to put it in perspective. (and I have the damaged lungs to prove it...) Xenoestrogens worry me, but we at least know some ways to minimize our exposure. I don't agree that we are swimming in a lethal chemical soup. Our environment today is pretty clean, really. Not perfect, but pretty good. I definitely wouldn't want to use the relatively small exposures that we do face as a justification for consuming an over-large stack.

Grapefruit is an inhibitor of 3A4 in the gut, but it doesn't tag the liver enzyme. If you are using drugs that are substantially metabolized by P450-3A4 (not just P450; there are many different kinds), then you could be at risk for an overdose. 3A4 tends to hit larger hydrophobes. It is less of a factor in typical supplement metabolism compared to typical pharmaceuticals. The nature of the grapefruit inhibition is such that once the enzyme is hit, it is dead. You will not recover your full complement of gut 3A4 for several days, assuming you stop eating grapefruit.

niner,

I understand what you mean, and I think clearly once a person is aware of the issues with grapefruit that they should avoid it. Yet, I have seen a lot of stacks here on the forums, and this one seems to contain a lot of the relatively safe supplements that many of us here have been using for quite awhile.

A good number of us also get regular and comprehensive blood tests, including myself. Since I take or have taken almost all of those supplements, never made it a point to avoid grapefruit until recently, and my subjective health and my blood tests have both been great, that would seem to indicate that the OP shouldn't be having serious problems. The dosages weren't listed, so that could clearly be a factor, and I never had 2 glasses of grapefruit juice per day for any length of time, so that could also be a factor. I do think he has to pick between the supps and the daily grapefruit though, because he shouldn't be continuing to have both, but I highly doubt any serious problems have developed, and I don't think he needs to be neurotic about avoiding grapefruit. It would be as silly as those people who neurotically avoid even the faintest hint soy, even though they have no allergy to it.

Other natural products like black pepper is known to suppress liver enzymes too. I am sure most of us here with comparable stacks have been exposed to grapefruit, black pepper, and lots of other things that could impact bioavailability. Even timing and whether a supp is taken with fat or not can hugely impact absorption. These supps are common to so many of our stacks because they have shown themselves to be relatively few in side effects.

The complexity of our bodies does seem to boggle the mind, but so much of what he is taking are essential amino acids, vitamins, and so forth. I did recommend to him to go easy on the herbs and noots, but even those I have never experienced problems with and haven't heard of anyone who has (except maybe modafinil). The biggest concern here is that too many of us spend far too much time and money on this stuff. At worst, I think all of this is doing nothing, which would be sad, but assuming one's blood tests look ok I don't think such a regimen could be considered dangerous.

Edited by progressive, 17 January 2010 - 08:46 PM.

Regarding CoQ10:

http://www.nutraingr...10-uptake-Study

Since it's an expensive supplement, that's not bad

Lipoic Acid has had some questions about it recently. R-Lipoic acid is also quite expensive. I would consider dumping the supps that are expensive and questionable and diverting the money to good causes. Donating to anti-aging research would have a higher utility from a life extension perspective than buying R-lipoic acid. Though vitamin D, being so cheap, effective, and well studied, has very high utility. (you could also consider switching to regular Lipoic Acid)

No. Regular ALA can actually be a waste at best and harmful at worst because of the S-enantiomer. Do some forum research on it.

CoQ10 is another very expensive supp. Perhaps if you are old and rich it makes some sense, though I think taking all the other stuff probably covers enough bases and thus makes CoQ10 supps redundant. Young people especially have little need for CoQ10.

Or if you are taking a statin regardless of age.

Lipoic Acid has had some questions about it recently. R-Lipoic acid is also quite expensive. I would consider dumping the supps that are expensive and questionable and diverting the money to good causes. Donating to anti-aging research would have a higher utility from a life extension perspective than buying R-lipoic acid. Though vitamin D, being so cheap, effective, and well studied, has very high utility. (you could also consider switching to regular Lipoic Acid)

No. Regular ALA can actually be a waste at best and harmful at worst because of the S-enantiomer. Do some forum research on it.

There isn't much evidence that the S-enantiomer is harmful. I'm not really sure there's any evidence that it's explicitly harmful, any more than the R-isomer. There are reasons not to take ALA, and in fact I've stopped taking it myself, but not because of anything having to do with the S-enantiomer.

[...] but assuming one's blood tests look ok I don't think such a regimen could be considered dangerous.

I still find this to be a scary regimen. There's LEF Life Extension Mix, a mega-dose multi that might be mis-named, then a Multi-mineral, then Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, K on top of that, then a bunch of other minerals on top of that! There could easily be a number of overdoses here, and that doesn't even take diet into account. I can't consider single amino acids to be benign when taken pharmacologically. I've seen too many reports of problems in that category. Another category where I've seen a lot of problems is nootropics and herbs. I don't think that conventional blood tests like one would get from a doctor would expose all or even most of the potential problems from a regimen like this. Rather than dropping the grapefruit juice, I'd scale the regimen back a lot.

Thank you for your reply progressive.

Unless you are experiencing a truly noticeable subjective enhancement with rhodiola rosea, ashwagandha, modafinil, aniracetam, etc then I would say dump them since they aren't terribly well studied.

Yes, I responded to Rhodiola Rosea and Aniracetam very well. Rhodiola Rosea gave me lots of energy and speeds me up a lot. Aniracetam is helpful with my ADD symptom. I just tried one day on Modafinil, I took 100mg that day and it worked so intensively on me, extremely helpful with my ADD symptom however, even though I could concentrate a lot easier my thoughts were not fluid and language fluency was affected negatively. 100mg seemed to be too much for me, I may want to try 50mg in next few days but I'm not sure whether grapefruit could interact with it. For ashwagandha, since I take it before going to sleep, I'm not sure if it works on me.

Cost effectiveness is probably the main thing you want to reconsider.

True enough, I've spent too much money on supplements, at least $5000 in 6 months even though not all for myself, my parents and my wife as well. It has been a terrible burden on me. The only thing I can hope now is that my parents and my wife would get better soon.

Some things seem to enhance or negate each other.
SAMe and Folate, Zinc and Copper, Amino Acids in combination with other Amino Acids, and so forth. So be extra careful with these.

Could you be more specific?

Lipoic Acid has had some questions about it recently.

What kind of questions about lipoic acid?

R-Lipoic acid is also quite expensive. I would consider dumping the supps that are expensive and questionable and diverting the money to good causes. Donating to anti-aging research
would have a higher utility from a life extension perspective than buying R-lipoic acid. Though vitamin D, being so cheap, effective, and well studied, has very high utility. (you could also consider switching to regular Lipoic Acid)

Lipoic Acid is so attractive on it's universal anti-oxidant property. I'm using it also for the blood glucose concern. I also read from somewhere about S-enantiomer in regular ALA being harmful and because of this concern I'm spending a lot more money on R-Lipoic Acid. If regular ALA can be confirmed to be no harmful at all, I would certainly be interested in switching back to lower the cost.

LEF Mix already has lots of selenium in it, so taking extra doesn't make much sense. Also, if you are taking a full dose of the LEF Mix and taking Jarrow's CarotenALL, that is quite a lot of vitamin A.

I bought a bottle of LEF Mix a few months ago and have never taken it yet. I thought I shouldn't waste it so I started to experiment with it yesterday, seems to work pretty well as I could actually feel something from it. I'm thinking if I should stock some since it's on big sale at LEF right now. The very big thing I don't like is the regular Vitamin E in this formular. While I'm on the LEF Mix, I'm not taking any of other vitamin and minerals except extra 2000IU of vitamin D.

CoQ10 is another very expensive supp. Perhaps if you are old and rich it makes some sense, though I think taking all the other stuff probably covers enough bases and thus makes CoQ10 supps redundant. Young people especially have little need for CoQ10.

I'm over 40 now and a few months ago I was extremely tired everyday. Co-Q10 seemed to have given me noticeable energy and I could always feel it's effect on my heart. However, while I was on LEF Mix in these two days, I didn't take Co-Q10 but still feel good, I might want to consider taking it every two to three days to save me some money.

Centrophexine and citicholine are redundant, and centrophexine is more expensive and probably not worth it.

I just bought Centrophexine and just took one tablet a few days ago, didn't feel anything from it. I will try it again some time next week. I use it for removing possible brain lipofuscin and also hoping it to remove the sun spots on my face.

I don't think you are doing anything dangerous though. Most people are getting just as large of a chemical cocktail per day as you.... between pesticides, pharmaceuticals, smog, smoking, xenoestrogens from leached plastic, etc etc etc. Our livers are pretty good at filtering out toxins. Best not to chronically overload it, but you are probably healthier than most considering your stack and your health-consciousness.

Thank you and I hope I could be "healthier than most". Actually, I'm feeling much better now compared with a few months ago. I've lost 25 ponds in two months and my fasting blood glucose has come down from 110 to 81 now. I will keep going to be more and more healthy.

Edited by cougar, 18 January 2010 - 05:03 AM.

Thanks for your input niner.

I still find this to be a scary regimen. There's LEF Life Extension Mix, a mega-dose multi that might be mis-named, then a Multi-mineral, then Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, K on top of that, then a bunch of other minerals on top of that! There could easily be a number of overdoses here, and that doesn't even take diet into account.

I'm sorry that I didn't write enough in details regarding my stack. I actually started to experiment with Life Extension Mix from yesterday as the bottle has been sleeping in the cabinet for several months now and I thought I shouldn't waste it. While on the LEF Mix I certainly didn't take any other vitamins and minerals except for an extra 2000IU vitamin D and Magnesium. My apology for making you guys confused. However, the LEF Mix seems to work if what I felt was not placebo effect. I'm thinking if I should stock more as it's on sale on LEF.org right now but I really don't like the regular vitamin E in this formular.

I can't consider single amino acids to be benign when taken pharmacologically. I've seen too many reports of problems in that category. Another category where I've seen a lot of problems is nootropics and herbs.

Could you be more specific on these? I'm really interested.

I don't think that conventional blood tests like one would get from a doctor would expose all or even most of the potential problems from a regimen like this.

Agreed, conventional blood tests won't expose everything. Since I'm not taking any viatamin and minerals while I'm on the LEF Mix, also I'm cycling Rhodiola Rosea and SAMe, plus, I'm not a regular user of Modafinil, do you still think there are potential problems in this stack? I'm eager to hear any opinion on this stack.

Rather than dropping the grapefruit juice, I'd scale the regimen back a lot.

In your opinion, which one should be dropped from this stack? Thanks in advance.

Edited by cougar, 18 January 2010 - 05:40 AM.

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Regarding CoQ10:

http://www.nutraingr...10-uptake-Study

Since it's an expensive supplement, that's not bad

Interesting and hope it to be true. Thanks a lot.