ABSTRACT
It is important to recognize and prevent food-drug interactions since failure to do so may be hazardous to patients and predispose them to treatment failure, toxicity or even life-threatening adverse events. The increasing complexity of drug therapy regimens has increased the risk of food-drug interactions, and it is important that healthcare professionals are aware of the mechanisms behind the interactions and also realize the advantages and disadvantages of methods to prevent food-drug interactions in hospitalized patients. Introduction of computerized prescription of drugs in more and more hospitals may lead to systems that are capable of screening and warning about serious interactions before the drug is administered to the patient. Standard drug administration schedules, hospital newsletters, educational in-services, label systems and patient counselling are other measures which can help avoiding food-drug interactions (1). Furthermore, evaluating the effect of food on the absorption and bioavailability of drugs is an essential requirement in drug development.
