Posted on 09/14/2022 6:55:29 AM PDT by Red Badger
BLOOD clots are either dangerous or beneficial depending on how and where they form. According to a case study published in the Lancet, a woman almost lost her leg due to a dangerous blood clot after eating the same fruit daily - how much do you eat?
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Blood clots often form in response to injury. This is the body's way of stemming bleeding. However, blood clots that form in one or more of the deep veins in the body can spell trouble. This is known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT). According to a chilling case report published in the Lancet journal, a woman almost lost her leg to amputation after a blood clot formed in the deep veins in her leg. And the possible cause is as surprising as it is shocking.
The woman ate a grapefruit daily and researchers suggest this may have contributed to the blood clot formation.
Emergency doctors in Olympia, in the US Pacific coast state of Washington, treated the 42-year-old woman in November 2008 after she was admitted with shortness of breath, dizziness and difficulty walking.
An ultrasound scan found she had a large clot blocking the veins of her left leg.
She was in imminent danger of losing the limb to gangrene, but doctors administered a clot-busting drug directly into the blockage and safely dissolved it.
The physicians found she had taken a relatively long car journey, of about an hour and a half, the day before; took a daily dose of oestrogen oral contraceptives; and had a genetic variant, called the factor V Leiden mutation, which is linked to a blood-clot disorder.
All are well-established factors for causing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), as these dangerous events are called.
But what "may well have tipped the balance" is that she had been eating a grapefruit every morning under a weight-loss diet begun three days earlier, the report said.
Grapefruit juice is known to block the action of an enzyme called CYP3A4 which breaks down the contraceptive hormone oestrogen.
This in turn boosts levels of coagulability - the tendency of blood to clot.
Grapefruit juice is broken down only very slowly, which means that it has a cumulative effect if taken daily.
Thus, on the third day of her diet, the patient's oestrogen levels would have been many times above normal, helping the clot to form.
However, it's important to keep a sense of perspective. Commenting on the findings at the time, Doctor Trevor Baglin, Consultant Haematologist, Addenbrooke’s NHS Trust, said: “From this case study it appears as if the grapefruit enhanced the thrombotic effect of the contraceptive pill in the presence of a genetic predisposition."
He continued: "However, it is worth pointing out that this is a single case study and a very unusual case at that.
"I would suggest that any extreme diets should be avoided because they can have unpredictable consequences.”
It's worth noting that people on statins - drugs that lower cholesterol and the subsequent risk of blood clots - are advised against eating grapefruit.
Do not drink grapefruit juice if you're taking simvastatin (a common type of statin), advises the NHS.
"Grapefruit juice increases the level of simvastatin in your blood and makes side effects more likely," the health body warns.
As it goes on to explain, atorvastatin - another common statin - also interacts with grapefruit juice if you drink large quantities (more than 1.2 litres daily), but an occasional glass is thought to be safe.
"Currently, healthcare professionals advise it is safe to drink grapefruit juice and eat grapefruit if you're taking other types of statins."
Yeah. Fruit. For THREE WHOLE Fxxxxxx DAYS.
Sure it was the grapefruit. And I'm Queen Elizabeth II.
They're not stupid ... They think we are.
Grapefruit has been known for a long time to interact with a number of drugs.
I bet she drink water everyday too. Such risky behavior.
Yes and oral contraceptives and clots have a long established relationship also.
for years and there’s a notification on the bottle to avoid grapefruit and grapefruit juice.
Journalism helps the government manipulate society by withholding coverage of some things.
Journalism helps the government manipulate society by covering things that the government wants in front of the people.
If journalists are telling us that grapefruit caused a blood clot in 2008, there is probably a reason for this news to be in front of the people.
And the reason may be tied to journalism's reluctance to provide coverage of the COVID vaccine's recent proclivity to cause blood clots.
That is correct, but this sort of claim is entirely new, all too convenient, and less than credible, however.
She had four other known risk factors but they blame the grapefruit?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well she ate it THREE days in a row!
Grasping now.
That pretty much defines the entire situation we're in today.
The biggest ad fallacy I can remember is the "Oatmeal every day" campaign. Awful!
I eat Oatmeal, .......well, ....like......never.................................
I’ll eat oatmeal maybe twice a month, and only the steel cut whole oats, not those pasty, highly-processed flakes that Quaker always pushes.
It makes a good substitute for spackling compound if you need to repair your sheetrock..................
It reacts with her statin.
I have basically zero HDL cholesterol as a result of a genetic fluke (XYY).
After bad reaction to crestor, my wife switched me to 1g of old fashioned niacin 2x day (so 2g). Aside from the very unpleasant flush it gives, it worked wonders in my numbers.
I’m seeing a drug advertised with a warning about eating grapefruit while taking it.
“Eating three grapefruit in three days would lead to “many times” her usual level of estrogen?!?”
Perhaps not normally, but the story also says she was taking estrogen-based birth control pills. So she already had an artificially high level, and the grapefruit stopped her body’s enzymes from breaking down the excess estrogen.
Still don’t buy it.
Sorry.
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