Nutrition when taking Marcumar® | Marcumar® and alcohol – is it compatible?

Nutrition when taking Marcumar®

When taking Marcumar, some special dietary requirements should be taken into account. As with many medications, Marcumar is absorbed more slowly in the stomach if it is filled with food at the same time. The required effect level, i.e. the minimum amount of a drug in the blood that must be present for it to work, is not affected by regular intake of Marcumar.

The effect of Marcumar is due to the fact that it prevents the formation of coagulation factors. But Marcumar displaces Vitamin K from the structure apparatus of the clotting factors. Thus this loses its effect and the clotting factors can no longer be trained.

If however over the food very much Vitamin K is taken up, the quantity of Marcumar is not sufficient any longer sufficient around the whole Vitamin K to displace. Thus again clotting factors can be formed. The blood thus tends to clump together again and the effect is reduced.

It is not important whether Marcumar is taken together with vitamin K-containing food or at intervals. Foods containing vitamin K are for example sauerkraut, chicken, Brussels sprouts, spinach and other fresh vegetables. However, if they are stored and cooked for too long, they can lose vitamins.

In addition, vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin and therefore always needs a little fat in the same meal to be dissolved in the stomach and then absorbed. Another special feature of the diet is the breakdown of Marcumar. The drug is broken down in the body by enzymes and then excreted.

Marcumar is the enzyme CYP3A4. By eating grapefruit, the CYP3A4 enzyme is inhibited. Marcumar, which is a substrate of this enzyme, is therefore degraded less quickly. For this reason, the effect of Marcumar can increase when eating grapefruits.