Avoid Coffee with These 5 Common Medications, Experts Warn

Coffee

is one of the most popular beverages across the world that not just helps you wake up and open your eyes but also energise and comforts you. However, your morning brew may feel harmless, and it interacts with certain medicines in ways that can reduce their effectiveness – or lead to many dangerous side effects. According to experts, the impact of caffeine in your body can go beyond giving you an energy boost – and so, make sure to stay away from these medicines:

Cold and flu medication

Caffeine, a stimulant, is the world's most consumed psychoactive substance – known for its wakefulness-promoting, performance-enhancing, and cognitive-enhancing properties – and can speed up your central nervous system. According to experts, most cold and flu medicines have pseudoephedrine, which is also a stimulant. And so, when you take them together, the effects will get amplified, causing jitters or restlessness, headaches, a fast heart rate, and sleeplessness. Doctors say that in many of the cold and flu medicines, caffeine is already added, which increases the risks further. According to studies, combining caffeine with pseudoephedrine in the long run can raise blood sugar and body temperature. Also, if you have asthma, you need to make sure never to take medicines like theophylline along with your cup of coffee.

Cardiovascular medicines

Caffeine raises your blood pressure and heart rate temporarily, which can even last for three to four hours after you have it. For those taking blood pressure medication, counteract the intended effects of the medication.

Thyroid medication

Treatments for underactive thyroid can be extremely sensitive to timing. According to studies, drinking coffee just before you take levothyroxine reduces its absorption by more than 50 per cent. Coffee can also speed up gut motility, giving the drug less time to be absorbed, and may bind to it in the stomach, making it harder for the body to take in. These effects reduce the drug’s bioavailability, meaning less of it reaches your bloodstream where it is needed.

Antidepressants

Antidepressants are interactions between caffeine and mental health medications that can be more complex. According to experts, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which are used to treat depression, anxiety, and mental health issues, can be blocked due to the ingestion of caffeine, which binds to these drugs in the stomach, reducing absorption and potentially making them less effective. According to studies, a few antipsychotic drugs taken along with coffee can also increase blood levels by up to 97 per cent, potentially increasing risks like drowsiness and confusion.

Painkillers

Painkillers, medicines like aspirin or paracetamol, have caffeine in them. Coffee speeds up how quickly these drugs are absorbed by accelerating how fast the stomach empties and making the stomach more acidic, which improves absorption for some medications. In the long run, taking coffee with painkillers can raise the risk of side effects like stomach irritation or bleeding.