Why your Christmas treats could interfere with your medication

The dining table in most Nigerian homes this season is a masterpiece of hospitality. However, unknown to many, it is also a festive minefield. If you are on any medication, you must have spent the year meticulously organising your pill strips and setting phone alerts, only to walk into a festive meal and play a high-stakes game of chemical chicken with a bowl of pepper soup, a mountain of jollof, and a chilled glass of Chapman. Although most of us think of food as fuel and medicine as a fix, inside the body, they are both just collections of molecules vying for space in our bloodstream. When those molecules collide, the result is not just a bit of “heartburn”; it can be genuinely life-altering.

Take the citrus often found on our breakfast table or in festive fruit salads, for example. While we love a good grapefruit or a squeeze of lime to cut through the richness of fried meat, these fruits contain compounds that effectively put a lock on the specific enzymes in your gut meant to break down your medication. If you are taking a statin for cholesterol or a common blood pressure pill like amlodipine, that glass of juice acts like a dam breaking. Instead of your body absorbing a steady, measured dose, the medicine spikes to toxic levels. It is the pharmaceutical equivalent of taking a week’s worth of pills in a single sitting, often leading to severe muscle pain or kidney distress before the Boxing Day leftovers are even cold.

Then there is the trap of the “party platter” and aged delicacies. While we might reach for imported cheeses or cured meats during high-end celebrations, these are loaded with tyramine. For people on older antidepressants or certain medications for Parkinson’s, tyramine is a direct trigger for a hypertensive crisis. It causes a rapid, violent spike in blood pressure that can lead to a stroke. Medics sometimes call it the “cheese effect”, but in a local context, it is the silent danger prowling behind the fancy, seemingly harmless snacks.

Even those trying to be healthy are not always safe. If you are on blood thinners like warfarin, a sudden, massive influx of vitamin K from a mountain of “healthy” green vegetables—think of the abundance of pumpkin leaves, spinach, or kale often served alongside our proteins—acts as a direct antagonist to your treatment. While the medicine is trying to thin the blood to prevent clots, the greens are working just as hard to thicken it. So, you are not just eating your vegetables; you are effectively turning off your protection against a stroke or a blood clot.

The truth is that “consistency” is the word the doctors keep repeating. It is not that you cannot ever have a bowl of your favourite; it is that if you usually eat a small portion once a week and then suddenly eat three large helpings every day for a week because it is “Detty December”, your medication simply cannot keep up with the sudden switch.

The scale of this ignorance is perhaps the most dangerous part of this season, especially in Nigeria. Our pharmacies are often the first port of call, yet very few of us think to ask the chemist, “What can’t I eat with this?” Many of us manage multiple prescriptions for blood sugar or pressure daily; unfortunately, very few can name a single food interaction that actually applies to us.

Now, this is not about avoiding our favourite festive meals forever; it is about understanding that our bodies thrive on balance. The solution is rarely as simple as glancing at the tiny fine print on a packet containing your prescribed medicine. It requires a real, human conversation with your pharmacist, who can suggest a “safety swap”—like trading the grapefruit for a sweet orange or ensuring your portion of green leafy soup stays consistent rather than doubling it just because it is a festive period.

Alcohol, the omnipresent guest at every gathering across the country, is the ultimate wild card. It does not just make you tipsy; it changes how your liver prioritises its workload. If you are taking specific antibiotics like metronidazole (often used for stomach upsets), even a small sip of beer or wine can trigger violent vomiting, a pounding headache, and a racing heart. This is not a “bad reaction” to the alcohol itself but a chemical clash that can badly affect your body. Furthermore, if you are leaning on paracetamol-heavy cold and flu remedies to get through a “harmattan cold”, mixing them with festive drinks puts an immense, invisible strain on your liver that does not just disappear once the celebration is over.

What often goes unmentioned is the “rebound effect” of our heavy holiday starches and sugary malt drinks. For someone on insulin or metformin for diabetes, the sudden surge of a three-course feast, maybe pounded yams followed by cake and soda, is not just a matter of “indulgence”. Alcohol can mask the symptoms of low blood sugar, leading to a situation where people think they are just feeling the “holiday spirit” when they are, in effect, slipping into a dangerous hypoglycaemic state.

We must also talk about the less obvious culprits, like real black liquorice or even certain herbal teas that make their way onto the table. These can send your potassium levels into a tailspin, potentially causing irregular heartbeats for those on heart medications. And for those taking certain antibiotics, that splash of milk in your tea or a heavy helping of condensed milk on a dessert can bind to the medicine in your stomach. It turns a potent cure into an inactive lump that your body simply flushes away without any benefit, leaving your infection to thrive.

Now, the lack of awareness of the unpleasant interaction between certain medications and some foods often stems from a gap in our healthcare conversations. Our doctors are often overwhelmed with long queues, and we are often too shy to ask questions. We treat the pharmacy and the market as two different worlds, but inside the human body, they are the same thing.

So, as the Christmas lights twinkle and the toasts begin, remember that the most potent weapon in the room is not always in the pharmacy bottle; it is sometimes hiding in that pot of soup or cooler box. We should enjoy the festivities, but we must do it with a bit of scientific abstinence or moderation.

The goal of the season is to make memories with the people we love, not to become a prayer point or warning sign at a local hospital. So, read the pamphlet in that medicine packet, talk to your pharmacist, and keep your eating and drinking within limits. A little bit of metabolic awareness may just be the best gift you can give your health this season.

Ojenagbon, a health communication expert and certified management trainer and consultant, lives in Lagos