Adverse Drug Interactions, Drug Interaction with Drugs, Foods, Supplements

How often have you eagerly taken a drug for relief without thinking about the various ways it can cause harm? Because a drug changes the way your body works, substances are used to prevent, cure, alleviate symptoms of or diagnose a wide variety of health conditions. Yet before you take them, do you ever consider its potential for causing side effects, an allergic reaction, overdose or adverse interactions? This health blurb focuses on just one of these undesirable possibilities, that of adverse drug interactions.

A drug interaction is the altering of a drug’s effects by either some other substance or influencing condition. The consequence of this mixing can be beneficial or unfavorable to the desired outcome. The nature of a drug interaction may delay, increase or decrease the drug’s action, as well as result in detrimental side effects.

Unfortunately, there are some adverse drug interactions that can dramatically affect your ability to function or even permanently diminish your health. So before you medicate take the time to research that drug’s potential for a destructive interaction. For a full review of an adverse interaction you’ll need to scrutinize the known list of drugs, foods, supplements and seemingly unrelated existing health conditions that could disturb your body’s reaction.

Here’s a few examples of drugs, foods or supplements you may or may not suspect are involved in adverse interactions:

This is far from a complete list, only used to demonstrate the wide variety of substances.

Never assume just because your health care provider gave no interaction warnings about a prescribed drug that it can safely be taken under all circumstance. Anytime you receive a prescription or OTC medication, thoroughly inquire about the drug’s interplay with other stuff. Some of the sources for this information are via your doctor, pharmacist, the label and trustworthy internet websites.