When you collect your medication from the pharmacist, the box will state the time you should take it. The doctor’s prescription also states whether you should take it together with food, before or after. Why is food important for the effect of the drug? And does it matter what kind of food you combine with medication? Pharmacist Greta Veramme-Casier explains.
As a patient you naturally want a medicine to work as optimally as possible. This is only possible if it is taken at the most appropriate time. “The TMax and the half-life of a drug are important for the effect of medicines,” says pharmacist Greta Veramme-Casier. “The TMax is the time it takes for the drug to reach its maximum concentration in the blood. The half-life is the length of time during which the effective concentration of the drug decreases by half.”
The aim is to determine those moments as precisely as possible. “The doctor and the pharmacist will therefore state this on the prescription and on the box. This way, the patient immediately knows when that medicine needs to be taken. For example, if you have stomach problems and you vomit again after eating, there is little point in taking the medicine with a meal. It is better to take it half an hour before you eat something, so that the medicine can already take effect. Or if you suffer from heartburn, you do the opposite: you take antacids an hour after a meal to neutralize the stomach acid.”
Do all medications have to be taken with food?
You should preferably take a lot of medicines in the morning with breakfast. “The explanation behind this is simple: together with a sandwich or a bowl of yogurt, medicines are easier to digest,” says the pharmacist. “Many medicines can otherwise irritate the stomach considerably. Think of Nurofen or Apranax.” There are also medicines that you have to take in the evening. “Calcium to slow down bone breakdown, for example, because bone is mainly broken down at night, so that the medicine works optimally during a night’s sleep. The same applies to most cholesterol inhibitors: cholesterol is mainly produced at night. This, too, does not necessarily have to happen with food.”
Be careful with liqueur pralines in combination with metronizadol, you will sweat, become dizzy and nauseous and get nauseated due to that little alcohol.
Even those who recently caught a flu in the middle of this flu epidemic will probably not have taken much medication with food. “During a flu you feel really bad, you have chills, you cough and you sweat. Antibiotics do not help with this virus and you will not feel like eating at all. What food does to your medicines therefore plays no role in this case. Getting sick is the message. Often the flu is accompanied by bacterial superinfections, meaning that a bacterial infection comes on top of the real flu. And that is a bacterial infection that antibiotics do work with. Antibiotics not only kill bad bacteria, but also part of the good intestinal flora. You can restore that by taking some yoghurt.”
Does it matter what you eat when you take medication?
“Absolutely,” says the pharmacist. “Not all food can be combined with medicines. For example, do not drink a glass of grapefruit juice when taking your medication. In your body, that juice uses enzymes in the liver that are also necessary for the processing of a medicine. If you drink grapefruit juice or just eat a grapefruit, that medicine can be broken down too little, so that you absorb too little – or just too much – of it.”
Also noteworthy: one particular praline requires a warning. “It is better not to eat those with a liqueur flavour, because that little alcohol can cause side effects when taking the drug metronizadol: it makes you sweat, makes you dizzy and nauseous and gives you a tendency to vomit. Be careful with that.”
Take extra care with the contraceptive pill
Are you traveling and unfamiliar food makes you bad? Or do you feel nauseous and have an upset stomach at home? Then be careful when taking the contraceptive pill. “If you have severe vomiting and a lot of diarrhea, you will probably not keep your food down completely shortly after taking the pill. In this case you have to take the pill again, otherwise its effect will be gone. A lot of people don’t realize that.”
Read also:
Which medication should not be combined with alcohol? And what happens if you do?
Do you take your pills standing up? There is a body position that works (at least) twice as fast
New anti-obesity drug found. “Weight loss of more than 20% possible”: how does it work? (+)
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