Why medication with food

Or that little prescription label that the pharmacist often affixes, along with "may cause dizziness", "do not operate heavy machinery while taking this medicine", that says "Take with food. However, the point of this study was not only to find out how often this is said, but included a focus group that asked patients how often this created a challenge for them in their everyday lives.

For instance, when our patients don't have enough to eat, how do these instructions affect them? It turned out that quite often, when we told our patients to take medications with food, if they had no access to food, they would skip the medication, despite this not being the intended result.

A while after seeing this research poster, at a large meeting where members of all of our practices came together with senior leadership, we were asked to go through and highlight all of the many challenges we and our patients faced in getting them ideal care, and where we hoped to put our efforts to try and improve things. As you can imagine, this generated a lot of input from those present, lots of suggestions, dozens and dozens of areas where we needed to fill gaps in care, improve access, work on patient safety, and improve the quality of the care we provide.

Interestingly, this is the first large meeting where I remember food insecurity among our patients coming up. We all know that many of our patients are challenged getting access to nutritious foods, often make poor food choices, sometimes have to choose between food and rent, or food and medicine, and they have many other challenges related to food, money, and health.

If you're uncertain what foods are OK, check with your pharmacist. For these, take them either no less than one hour before a meal, or at least two hours after a meal. And if you're taking them after a meal, that means your medication will do its best work if you don't eat again for another two hours.

Peripheral artery disease options. Soothing a teething baby. Yoga and lower back pain. Send your questions to askthedoctors mednet. Owing to the volume of mail, personal replies cannot be provided. Home Events Dining Comics. Facebook Twitter Email. Ask the Drs. Eve Glazier, M. D and The Californian. Never underestimate the effect of food on your treatment. When your pharmacist gives you specific instructions regarding food, be sure to follow them! Otherwise, your treatment may not be fully effective or may even lead to side effects that could have been avoided.

If you were not given any specific instructions about food, your medication can probably be taken either on an empty stomach or with food. However, to be on the safe side, always check first with your pharmacist.

Ask us a question about the topic of your choice and we'll try to address it in a future article. The pharmacists are solely responsible for the professional activities carried out during the practice of pharmacy. The information contained herein is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide complete information on the subject matter or to replace the advice of a health professional.

This information does not constitute medical consultation, diagnosis or opinion and should not be interpreted as such. Please consult your health care provider if you have any questions about your health, medications or treatment.

Medication with or without food: does it really matter? Has your pharmacist ever told you that you need to take a certain medication on an empty stomach or, on the contrary, with food?