TV commercials, OTC medication labels, and even supplements almost universally say that they cannot be taken in combination with an MAOI. Even basic cold medications, decongestants, advil, and tylenol have this warning.
I’m sure there’s justification for everything, but it seems bizarre to me that something with such high interactivity would be taken by anyone. Would being on an MAOI prevent someone from receiving life saving medication in an emergency?
What is it about this class of medication that makes it need to be taken so exclusively? I’ve never heard of anything else remotely like it.
In: Biology
That’s because the original MAOi permanently destroyed the Mao enzyme.
Unlike most other drugs where if there‘s enough of a different compound that different compound would still be able to access that enzyme.
There‘s modern reversible MAOi like moclobemide which have zero of the risk of interaction. Because they don’t permanently chemically react with the enzyme.
So moment too much tyramine is in your system it‘ll still attach to the mao enzyme and will metabolised.
The permanent deactivation of any MAO circulating by old school irreversible MAOi is what made them special.
Not them being MAOi alone,
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