Drug & supplement interaction

Raw Food Diet + Phenytoin

Phenytoin brand names: Dilantin Kapseals, Dilantin, Di-Phen, Dilantin Infatabs, Phenytek, and others.

No Known Interaction
The bottom line No known interaction

We found no known interaction between Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin in our sources. Absence of a documented interaction is not the same as proven safety, and does not guarantee one does not exist. Do not start, stop, or change a medication or supplement based on this page; confirm with your pharmacist or doctor first. Additionally, although there is no interaction, the two are separately associated with some of the same side effects, which would make a new symptom harder to attribute to one or the other.

Know someone interested in this? Share
Interaction report

Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin

We checked these two against our interaction database. Here is what we found.

No Known Interaction Found

We did not find a documented interaction between Phenytoin and Raw Food Diet in our sources. This does not guarantee that the combination is completely free of risk — research on Raw Food Diet alongside specific medications may be limited.

Worth understanding: our licensed dataset holds no drug-interaction record for Raw Food Diet at all — not against Phenytoin, and not against any other medication we track. This verdict therefore rests on the absence of any recorded data, not on research that looked at this combination and found nothing. We cannot rule an interaction out.

Raw Food Diet is an eating pattern rather than something you take. Ask your pharmacist or doctor before changing how you eat while on a prescribed medicine: some medicines are dosed around meals, and a change in diet can change how they work. Do not stop a prescribed medicine on your own.

Always talk with your pharmacist or doctor before making changes to your medications or supplements, particularly if you take several medications or have an ongoing health condition.

Raw Food Diet safety at a glance

Raw Food Diet overall Use caution It can lead to nutrient gaps and foodborne illness if not carefully planned.
Pregnancy Possibly Unsafe During pregnancy and lactation due to risk for malnutrition. Read the full pregnancy detail
Breastfeeding Possibly Unsafe During pregnancy and lactation due to risk for malnutrition. Read the full breastfeeding detail

Pregnancy & breastfeeding ratings are from Natural Medicines (Therapeutic Research Center) — the full detail is in the Special populations card below. Safety guidance is general; always confirm with your pharmacist or doctor for your situation.

Still wondering about combining Phenytoin and Raw Food Diet? Ask Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS directly ›
What to actually watch for

No Interaction Found — But Data Suggests Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin May Share Several of the Same Side Effects

This is not an interaction. Neither one changes how your body handles the other, and nothing here says they react together. What our sources do show is that each has separately been linked to the effects below — so following Raw Food Diet while taking the medicine can make those effects more likely to turn up, and harder to pin on one or the other if they do.

  • Vomiting / Nausea Additional detail

    Raw Food Diet

    “In one clinical study, patients following a 40% raw food diet reported nausea, vomiting, and malaise after consuming typical restaurant and banquet foods. Participants also reported gastrointestinal symptoms when consuming certain foods, such as citrus fruit, nuts, and tomatoes.”

    Raw Food Diet · Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, reported in nausea and vomiting.

    1 source cited
    1. 103158. Douglass JM, Rasgon IM, Fleiss PM, Schmidt RD, Peters SN, Abelmann EA. Effects of a raw food diet on hypertension and obesity. South Med J. 1985 Jul;78(7):841-4. PubMed

    Phenytoin

    Listed in the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of the FDA label for Phenytoin. Read the label on DailyMed ›

Reported for Raw Food Diet but not commonly for Phenytoin: changes to your period and tiredness.

Effects for Phenytoin come from the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of its FDA label; effects for Raw Food Diet come from the Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, quoted above. Wording is matched across sources by our own clinical vocabulary, so treat this as a prompt to pay attention, not a diagnosis.

Special populations

Raw Food Diet in Pregnancy & Breastfeeding

Pregnancy And Lactation Possibly Unsafe

During pregnancy and lactation due to risk for malnutrition.

DISCLAIMER: This tool is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be interpreted as specific medical advice. Patients should consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about therapies and/or health conditions.© 2026 Therapeutic Research Center

From our Q&A

Questions About Raw Food Diet or Phenytoin

These are real questions from readers, answered by the pharmacists at HelloPharmacist — written by a person, not generated from a database. Each one covers Raw Food Diet or Phenytoin, not necessarily both, but if one is close to what you were about to ask it will usually go further than a database entry can:

Not quite your question? Ask our pharmacists directly — it is free, there is no account required, and answers usually come back within 24 hours.

Everything else you take

See Every Supplement That Interacts With Phenytoin

This page covers Raw Food Diet only. If you take other supplements — a multivitamin, a sleep aid, something for joints — the Phenytoin page lists 224 supplements it has a documented interaction with, worst first, each one explained.

The most serious there right now: 1,4-butanediol (major), Activated Charcoal (major), Beer (major), Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (ghb) (major) and Kava (major).

By severity: 9 major · 187 moderate · 28 minor.

From our pharmacist’s overview on the Phenytoin page

“Phenytoin (Dilantin) is a seizure medicine with a narrow therapeutic index, meaning small changes in its blood level can bring seizures back or tip over into toxicity, so I treat its supplement list with real seriousness. The biggest group, 78 ingredients, piles on sedation, and alcohol, kava, and GHB all rate major for exactly that re…”

Reviewed by 2 · Jul 18, 2026

Open the Phenytoin interaction page

How much people look this up

Where Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin Sit Against Everything Else

Out of every supplement and medication people look up on HelloPharmacist, here is where these two land this week — and which way each has been moving.

Supplement Raw Food Diet
Steady interest

#1,402 of 1,452 supplements looked up here in the last 7 days

29 days ago today
Medication Phenytoin
Top 25%

#384 of 2,830 medications looked up here in the last 7 days

29 days ago today

Position among everything looked up on this site, not a measure of how commonly either one is used or how important it is. A supplement can climb this list because of a news story. It counts every request to the page, automated ones included, and nothing here identifies anyone.

Where does our data come from?
  • Source: the Natural Medicines (TRC Healthcare) clinical database — the evidence-graded professional reference for herb & supplement interactions.
  • Citation library: 103,510 references behind our interaction content, 65,311 of them resolved to verified PubMed/DOI sources. See every Raw Food Diet reference on this page ↓
  • Freshness: we automatically re-check this combination every week — this pair was last verified September 27, 2026. The Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin records this page draws on were last updated July 10, 2026.
  • What “no known interaction” means: no documented interaction in the sources above — not a guarantee of safety. Supplements are studied far less than prescription drugs, so we say exactly what the evidence supports, and nothing more.
Data structure & sourcing designed and verified by .
Eating pattern

About Raw Food Diet

What is Raw Food Diet?

  • Weight loss
  • Improving digestion
  • Increasing fruit and vegetable intake
  • General wellness and detox
  • Lowering cholesterol

A raw food diet emphasizes uncooked, unprocessed plant foods (and sometimes raw animal products) based on the idea that cooking destroys nutrients and enzymes. It can boost intake of fruits and vegetables and help with weight loss, but it carries real risks of nutrient deficiencies and foodborne illness. Talk with a doctor or dietitian before trying it, especially if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or have a health condition.

Whole eating pattern based on uncooked or minimally heated plant foods, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouted grains

An interaction check asks whether these two react with each other — it does not ask whether Raw Food Diet is a good idea for someone in your situation. Here is what our Raw Food Diet record says about it on its own.

Raw Food Diet: dosing

Because a raw food diet is an eating pattern and not a pill, there is no standardized 'dose.' Plans vary widely—some people eat 100% raw, while others aim for 75% or 50% raw and cook the rest.If you want to try it, a safer approach is to add more raw fruits and vegetables to your meals rather than switching to fully raw all at once. Working with a registered dietitian helps you plan for protein, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, iron, and omega-3 fats, and may include supplements to fill gaps.

From our Raw Food Diet monograph — the full record covers uses, side effects and every documented interaction.

Read the full Raw Food Diet monograph & all interactions
Medication

About Phenytoin

What Is Phenytoin Used For?

Brand names: Dilantin Kapseals, Dilantin, Di-Phen, Dilantin Infatabs, Phenytek, Dilantin injection

Phenytoin is used to treat and prevent seizures. The specific types covered depend on the formulation. Oral extended-release capsules (including Phenytek), chewable tablets (including Dilantin Infatabs and Phenytoin Infatabs), and oral suspension (including Dilantin-125) are used for tonic-clonic (grand mal) and psychomotor (temporal lobe) seizures; most oral forms also cover prevention and treatment of seizures occurring during or after neurosurgery. Chewable tablets and some capsule formulations also cover complex partial seizures.

Parenteral (injectable) phenytoin sodium is used for generalized tonic-clonic status epilepticus (a prolonged, life-threatening seizure emergency) and for prevention and treatment of seizures during neurosurgery. The IV form can also substitute short-term for oral phenytoin when a patient cannot take it by mouth.

Most-Reported Side Effects for Phenytoin

From FAERS, the FDA’s public side-effect reporting system (40,278 reports, all brands). Reports are voluntary and are not proof the drug caused the effect.

Convulsion 3,522 reports
Seizure 3,095 reports
Toxicity to various agents 1,888 reports
Fall 1,604 reports
Dizziness 1,539 reports
See full Phenytoin drug information
Keep checking

Other Drugs & Raw Food Diet

Browse every other medication we’ve checked against Raw Food Diet — both the ones with a known interaction and the ones without. Select any drug for the full detail.

0Major
0Moderate
0Minor
2,829No known interaction
No interaction 2,829 drugs checked — show the list
Evidence & sources

Raw Food Diet References

The 4 references that drive our Raw Food Diet monograph and interaction data, from the evidence-graded Natural Medicines (TRC Healthcare) database. Citations with a link open the study on PubMed or the publisher’s site.

  1. Koebnick C, Garcia AL, Dagnelie PC, et al. Long-term consumption of a raw food diet is associated with favorable serum LDL cholesterol and triglycerides but also with elevated plasma homocysteine and low serum HDL cholesterol in humans. J Nutr. 2005 Oct;1
  2. Koebnick C, Strassner C, Hoffmann I, Leitzmann C. Consequences of a long-term raw food diet on body weight and menstruation: results of a questionnaire survey. Ann Nutr Metab. 1999;43(2):69-79. PubMed
  3. Ganss C, Schlechtriemen M, Klimek J. Dental erosions in subjects living on a raw food diet. Caries Res. 1999;33(1):74-80. PubMed
  4. Douglass JM, Rasgon IM, Fleiss PM, Schmidt RD, Peters SN, Abelmann EA. Effects of a raw food diet on hypertension and obesity. South Med J. 1985 Jul;78(7):841-4. PubMed

Medication overviews come from MedlinePlus (NIH); supplement label data from the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database. Content is written and reviewed by licensed HelloPharmacist pharmacists — see our data sources and editorial standards.

Pharmacist Counseling Corner

Following Raw Food Diet While Taking Phenytoin: Common Questions

Is it safe to follow Raw Food Diet while taking Phenytoin?
We do not list a known interaction between Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin. That does not guarantee the combination is risk-free, so confirm with your pharmacist or doctor — especially if you take other medications or have a health condition.
Do Raw Food Diet and Phenytoin have any of the same side effects?
Yes — our sources link each of them separately to 2 of the same effects. That is not an interaction: neither changes how your body handles the other. It does mean that if one of those effects turns up, it can be harder to tell which one is behind it. They are listed on this page with the source behind each.
Does Phenytoin interact with any supplements?
Yes. Phenytoin has documented interactions with 224 supplements in our database — Raw Food Diet is not one of them. The Phenytoin interaction page linked on this page lists every one, ranked by severity.

Written and reviewed by the HelloPharmacist editorial staff. Our editorial policy

Still Have a Question About Phenytoin and Raw Food Diet?

Our pharmacists answer your medication & supplement questions — free.

Ask a pharmacist

This information is for education only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always check with your pharmacist or doctor before starting, stopping, or combining supplements and medications.