Interactions of herbs and food products with drugs Grapefruit juice as an example

Plants have been used throughout human history for their medicinal properties and herbal medicines are popular worldwide. Since, all herbal medicines are mixtures of more than one active ingredient, such combinations of many substances obviously increase the likelihood of interactions taking place. Although herbal medicines have been used as remedies for number of illnesses, many of them have shown interactions with the synthetic drugs and also exhibited adverse effects. These herb-drug interactions may be adverse as well as beneficial. Herb-drug interactions are discussed in this article with an example of Grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macf.) juice-drug interaction. The oral bioavailability of many drugs was found to be increased when these are consumed along with grapefruit juice.