Drug Metabolism (When You're Not Average!)

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Mixing alcohol and drugs is bad, but there’s a little more to it than that!

  • Today’s main feature examines the different impacts of each of three factors (drinking, smoking, and carrying excess body fat) on drug metabolism, and what that means for you

• Are you ready for spring allergy season coming up next?

  • Today’s sponsor, Enjoy Good Health, is a free newsletter full of tips and tricks from sinus and allergy expert Dr. Jim Atkins. Check it out!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

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💊 MAIN FEATURE

When Your Medications Run Out… Of You

Everybody knows that alcohol can affect medications’ effects, but what of smoking, and what of obesity? And how does the alcohol thing work anyway?

It’s all about the enzymes

Medicines that are processed by the liver (which is: most medicines) are metabolized there by specialist enzymes, and the things we do can increase or decrease the quantity of those enzymes—and/or how active they are.

Dr. Kata Wolff Pederson and her team of researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark examined the livers of recently deceased donors in ways that can’t (ethically) be done with live patients, and were able to find the associations between various lifestyle factors and different levels of enzymes responsible for drug metabolism.

And it’s not always how you might think!

Some key things they found:

• Smokers have twice as high levels of enzyme CYP1A2 than non-smokers, which results in the faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.

• Drinkers have 30% higher levels of enzyme CYP2E1, which also results in a faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.

• Patients with obesity have 50% lower levels of enzyme CYP3A4, resulting in slower metabolism of many drugs

This gets particularly relevant when we take into account the next fact:

• Of the individuals in the study, 40% died from poisoning from a mixture of drugs (usually: prescription and otherwise)

Read in full: Sex- and Lifestyle-Related Factors are Associated with Altered Hepatic CYP Protein Levels

Read a pop-sci article about it: Your lifestyle can determine how well your medicine will work

How much does the metabolism speed matter?

It can matter a lot! If you’re taking drugs and carefully abiding by the dosage instructions, those instructions were assuming they know your speed of metabolism, and this is based on an average.

• If your metabolism is faster, you can get too much of a drug too quickly, and it can harm you

• If your metabolism is faster, it also means that while yes it’ll start working sooner, it’ll also stop working sooner

  • If it’s a painkiller, that’s inconvenient. If it’s a drug that keeps you alive, then well, that’s especially unfortunate.

• If your metabolism is slower, it can mean your body is still processing the previous dose(s) when you take the next one, and you can overdose (and potentially die)

We touched on this previously when we talked about obesity in health care settings, and how people can end up getting worse care:

Let’s Shed Some Obesity Myths

As for alcohol and drugs? Obviously we do not recommend, but here’s some of the science of it with many examples:

Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications

Take care!

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Enjoy Good Health

Are you ready for this spring’s allergy season coming up soon?

Dr. Jim Atkins is a board-certified otolaryngologist (ENT physician) who specializes in rhinology. An expert in the treatment of sinus and allergy problems, he’s offering tips and tricks in his free newsletter, answering frequently asked questions, and, to top it off, advocating for how to reduce these problems in the first place with diet and supplementation.

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📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet – by Sarah Anderson

From “A Room Of One’s Own” to “Silent Mondays”, from spiritual retreats to noise-cancelling headphones, this book covers the many benefits of silence—and a couple of downsides too.

In an age where most things are available at the touch of a button, a little peaceful solitude can come at quite a premium, but what it offers can effect all manner of physical changes, from reduced stress responses to increased neurogenesis (growing new brain cells).

The tone throughout is a combination of personal and pop-science, and it’s very motivating to find a little more space-between-the-things in life.

The book is best enjoyed in a quiet room.

Bottom line: if you get the feeling sometimes that you could rest and recover fully and properly if you could just find the downtime, this book will help you find exactly that.

Click here to check out the Lost Art of Silence, and find peace and strength in it!

Wishing you the very best of health in all ways, always,

The 10almonds Team