Sometimes, you are pressed just to do everything you need as you go through your day. It’s a big win when you remember to take your medication—so sipping down some coffee is not a big deal, right? Well, one new study is stressing some major concern for coffee drinkers who take any sort of medication.
It is always exciting to find a new discovery about coffee’s good health affects. However, a new study from an international group of scientists (led by an Italian endocrinologist named Luigi Barrea) proved that drinking coffee too close to also taking medicine “should be thought about to avoid some interaction.”
This finding aligns with a 2020 research that got more specific, saying that “coffee greatly affects the distribution, excretion and absorption of numerous drugs.”
Purvi Parekh, DO, a physician from Pennsylvania says that other complications might happen from taking medication along with coffee. “The top issues are that coffee can increase the effects, or change the absorption, of some popular medications,” Parekh says. She stressed that this, in turn, can change your goal “to get the complete effect of the medication.”
Keep reading to find out which medications Parekh reports might be affected by drinking coffee.
1 — Thyroid Drugs
Parekh reports that thyroid medications must be be taken when you have an empty stomach, after words, you should eat nothing else for at least thirty minutes. This is so your body can absorb your thyroid drug.
2 — Osteoporosis Medications
If you are drinking coffee along with your osteoporosis drug, Parek reports that, “you are lowering the full efficacy of this medication.”
3 — Acid Reflux Medication
“Acid reflux medicines do their best when they are taken first thing when you wake up, before you drink or eat anything else,” Parekh says.
It’s also worth remembering that because coffee has acid, and so it might exacerbate your issues that you are taking the medication for.
4 — Leg Swelling
“Caffeine usually turns off the hormone that stimulates your body to hold in water, so it is a diuretic,” Parekh says. So the caffeine inside coffee can boost your other diuretic medications, like those used to fight swollen legs.
5 — Heart Failure
Also, because of caffeine’s diuretic affects, people on medication for heart failure should be careful when drinking coffee.
Author: Scott Dowdy