Antihypertensives and Food
The ingestion of food has little or no effect on the absorption of Aldactone, captopril, enalapril or pentopril. Hypertension has been seen in negroes after eating large amounts of pork.
Some early studies suggested that food reduced the bioavailability of captopril and delayed its antihypertensive effects, but long-term work has shown that the absorption and bio-availability are not significantly changed. Other studies show that food has little or no effect on either enalapril or pentopnl. A study in subjects given 100 mg Aldactone showed that food did not affect steady-state levels, blood pressure or heart rate. This supports the recommendation that it should be taken with breakfast to avoid gastric irritation. Studies in negroes in southern USA have shown that those who eat extremely large amounts of pork can experience unpleasant symptoms including dizziness, nausea, vomiting, headache, diarrhoea, blurred vision, fainting, scotoma, lacnmation and general malaise. Two members of one family experienced very marked hypertension and one of them died after eating a considerable amount of pork. Salt pork possibly represents an additional problem. This is not, strictly speaking, an interaction, but rather an undesirable reaction m those under treatment for hypertension or cardiac failure. Whether it is confined to negroes is uncertain more study is needed.