TedEd: The dangers of mixing drugs

A TedEd by Céline Valéry

What's wrong with taking cholesterol medication with juice, ankle pain drugs with alcohol, and blood thinners with aspirin? Taking these things together causes side effects that could, in severe cases, cause injury or death. There are two ways that this can happen. Two substances can interact directly, or one can influence the way the body processes the other. With aspirin and blood thinners, both of them prevent blood clots from forming. Blood thinners prevent clotting factors from forming, and aspirin breaks the clots apart. Alone, these medications do their job. But together, they can have a big enough effect to cause internal bleeding. The other two reactions have to do with enzymes from the liver that break down substances. In the case of grapefruit juice and cholesterol, both of them require the same enzyme to break down, which means that the cholesterol medication is in the blood stream for longer. This could cause kidney failure. Alcohol also alters enzyme activity. Many pain relievers have a substance that creates a toxic by product when broken down. Usually, the amount is not deadly. But when the enzymes are affected by alcohol, they produce more of the toxic substance, potentially causing liver damage. Still, scientists are researching new drugs as they come out, hopefully preventing fatal drug interactions before they happen.