Pomelo & Grapefruit

Food · Fruit · Pome & Citrus

Connected to · 1

food source · 1

Vitamin C
Pomelo and grapefruit are citrus sources of vitamin C. Eating the segments with their membranes gives more fiber than drinking the juice, and the sugar reaches the blood more slowly.
Mechanism · 2
Mechanism · Membranes are fiber, juice is sugar water
Eaten as whole segments with their membranes, the fiber stays and sugar enters the blood more slowly; juicing filters most of the fiber out. The vitamin C is still in the juice, but the quality of that meal's carbohydrate has changed.
Safety · On regular medicines, ask first
Grapefruit and some pomelos disable an enzyme in the gut that breaks down certain drugs, so those drugs reach higher levels in the blood. One whole grapefruit or about 200 mL of grapefruit juice is enough to have a clinically meaningful effect on a sensitive drug. If you take a statin, certain blood-pressure drugs, an immunosuppressant or an antiarrhythmic drug, ask your doctor or pharmacist before eating grapefruit or pomelo.

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What pomelo and grapefruit are

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Grapefruit and some pomelos contain molecules called furanocoumarins that knock out a drug-processing enzyme in the wall of the small intestine, so some medicines reach the blood in much larger amounts. If you take regular medicines, check with your doctor or pharmacist before eating grapefruit or pomelo. How the enzyme gets switched off, and why eating the fruit a few hours apart from the pill is not a safe fix, is covered in the chapter on how grapefruit changes the way drugs work.

Drugs aside, these are refreshing, juicy fruits with plenty of vitamin C and fiber. The pomelo is the largest member of the citrus family; the grapefruit is a cross between pomelo and sweet orange, smaller, and a little bitter and tart. Both are close relatives of the sweet orange, but sweet oranges do not contain these molecules and do not affect drugs this way.

A large pomelo half on the left has thick pale pith and pale-yellow flesh; a smaller grapefruit half on the right has pink flesh and thinner pith. — A CLOSER LOOK
Pomelo and grapefruit: identify the fruit
Color, size and variety vary. This compares typical forms, not every citrus variety.

Educational content, not medical advice — consult a clinician.

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