Something to be aware of.
There are a few things that women know about the contraceptive pill when they’re using it. Take it at the same time every day and if you’re sick it might make it less effective.
One thing that a lot of people aren’t aware of is that eating grapefruits or drinking grapefruit juice can interfere with the pill.
Before you panic, because you have eaten grapefruit recently, or put some grapefruit in with your G&T – it hasn’t been proven to affect the efficiency of the pill as a contraceptive but it can make side effects worse.
Usually, it will be written on the outside of your pill packet as a warning.
How it affects the combined pill is down to the breakdown of oestrogen.
According to Healthline, the chemicals found in grapefruit interfere with an enzyme found in the intestine which affects how your body breaks down and absorbs certain medicines. One of those medicines is the pill.
They’ve said, “When you eat grapefruit or drink grapefruit juice, you can either absorb too much or not enough of these medicines. This means you might develop more side effects from the drug, or the drug may not work as well as it should.”
For the pill, grapefruit decreases the breakdown of oestrogen in the body and increases the amount of hormone in the bloodstream and therefore can increase the side effects associated with the hormone.
Some of those side effects include breast tenderness and headaches.
There are two types of contraceptive pills available in Ireland, the combined contraception pill (which contains oestrogen and progestogen) and the mini-pill (which contains just progestogen). As the mini-pill does not contain any oestrogen the grapefruit rule doesn’t apply to it.
If you are concerned about your pill and whether or not you should avoid grapefruit, it’s always best to consult with your doctor.
