4 ms·
If grapefruit causes the bio availability of a drug 10x stronger, it makes sense to be to prescribe 1/10* the amount of a drug with a shot of grapefruit juice.
by GloriousKoji 6y ago
If grapefruit causes the bio availability of a drug 10x stronger, it makes sense to be to prescribe 1/10* the amount of a drug with a shot of grapefruit juice. Seems like a good way to make drugs more economical.
* I'm assuming the active ingredient in drug is in the 10mg+ range. The way to get the accuracy needed from 1mg to 100ug sounds nontrivial to me.
- Taek 6y agoFor most drugs the economics aren't about the cost of producing the chemicals but all of the R&D behind the companies. Whether it's 10mg or 1000mg I don't think it's typically a material part of the cost.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoWhy would a patient or doctor care about that?
- pvaldes 6y agoPills have more things than the active compound. Taking less may reduce any hypothetical secondary collateral effects from those substances, so it could be useful to explore it at least. On the other hand, taking just a tenth part of a pill would be not easy to measure. Specially if you need to take the pills often. Sometimes you would take 1/10, other 3/10 or 1/20. That could be a recipe for problems.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoOk, I agree with the first paragraph (it’s a point I did not think about). The second point is a weak one as you must be quite special to consciously decide on changing the prescribed dose of the pill without buying scales to measure the dose (although I agree these costs quite a lot).