Food-drug interactions: Careful drug selection and patient counseling can reduce the risk in older patients.

Older patients are at high risk for food-drug Interactions. These patients are commonly on multiple medications for chronic medical conditions. Age-related physiologic changes affecting drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion, as well as drug action occur in these patients, and this variability in drug action may be further potentiated by interactions with foods. The most prominent interactions involve drug absorption from the GI tract; however alterations in drug metabolism are also highly significant. Food-drug interactions have been reported amongst a wide range of therapeutic drug classes, including, but not limited to, cardiovascular, psychoactive, anti-infective, endocrinologic, gastrointestinal, and respiratory agents. Health care providers can prevent significant drug therapy-related morbidity by carefully selecting drugs for geriatric patients and thoroughly counseling these patients about drug interactions with the foods they eat.