It never crosses most peoples mind, but the truth is, everything you ingest from medication, to beverages or food has the ability to impact the absorption, distribution, metabolism or excretion of anything else you happen to ingest. Some medications have the side effect of changing appetite, which that alone, could result in drug-induced malnutrition. Some of these interactions are more commonly known than others. For instance, you may have a grandparent that takes Coumadin to thin their blood. There is a long list of foods including asparagus and mayonnaise that patients need to avoid in order to keep their drug levels in a very narrow therapeutic range. Ingesting these foods along with Coumadin could result in uncontrolled bleeding, or just the opposite, it could negate the blood thinning properties of the drug all together and allow deadly clots to form in their arteries.

Another interaction is the interaction of alcohol with many medications. The fact is, alcohol can also impact the bodys use of many of its essential nutrients as well. Some of the chronic health problems that an alcoholic has are often associated with their malnutrition. Unfortunately, the word malnutrition conjures up images of extremely thin people on the verge of starvation. The fact is many obese individuals suffer from severe malnutrition and multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Just because you are consuming calories, doesnt mean you are meeting your bodys demands for all of its essential nutrients. The highly processed foods we eat are often devoid of the beneficial nutrients contained in the unprocessed foods.

Individual food components also have the ability to impact your bodys absorption of a drug. For instance, tyramine, a component of cheese and a powerful vasoconstrictor, can put a patient into a hypertensive emergency if they were to eat cheese while taking a drug called a monamine oxidase inhibitor, often called MAOI for short. Luckily, MAOI products are not used at near the frequency they once were.

Deficiencies in some of your essential nutrients can impact how your drugs are metabolized and used throughout your body. For instance zinc, coenzyme Q10, calcium or magnesium are all used within the tissues throughout your body, and if certain processes arent able to happen because of missing essential nutrients, the medications you have taken may not be able to perform properly. Having missing nutrients is like trying to build a house without any nails. You may be able to glue it together, but how many windstorms will the house be able to resist before crumbling to the ground?

Many medications can produce deficiencies in your vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients. For example, statins which are used to lower cholesterol have been shown in many studies to reduce the levels of Coenzyme Q10. Many diuretics are known to reduce levels of potassium, magnesium, and B vitamins; oral contraceptives have been linked to reductions in B-complex vitamins, particularly Folic Acid, as well as Zinc. There are literally hundreds of medications both over the counter and prescription that have an impact on one or more of your essential nutrients. There are numerous books written on just this subject!

Even deficiencies of one vitamin or mineral can impact how your body uses a different vitamin or mineral. Folic acid and Vitamin B12 often work hand in hand. When one is in full supply, and the other in a deficient state, the vitamin present isnt able to perform at its optimal capacity. This can have a domino effect, which can lead to a significant change in cell physiology (or function), and ultimately to a disease.