Can You Drink Lemonade With Cephalexin?
In our latest question and answer, the pharmacist discusses if it is safe to take cephalexin with a glass of lemonade.
Can I drink lemonade while taking cephalexin?
May 28, 2021- Lemonade has no known interaction with cephalexin and is safe to drink while taking this antibiotic. Cephalexin does interact with zinc, so avoid zinc supplements or fortified lemonades during your course of treatment. You can take cephalexin with or without food, though food may slightly delay absorption.
Hi Gret and thank you for reaching out to us.
Food interactions are sometimes present with antibiotics so I am always happy to make sure that we are avoiding drug interactions whenever possible.
What Is Cephalexin?
First, cephalexin is a first generation cephalosporin. It is commonly used to treat a wide variety of bacterial infections, but most often used for skin or ear infections. The good news is that cephalexin is a drug that I usually don’t worry too much about when it comes to foods or drinks as there are few interactions there.
Safe With Lemonade?
There is not any known drug interaction between cephalexin and lemonade. While cephalexin has relatively few food interactions compared to some other antibiotics, zinc is a commonly cited one to be aware of.
Zinc seems to bind to and decrease the absorption of cephalexin. Lemons don’t really contain any significant amount of zinc.
There might be a fortified version of a lemonade that has added zinc, but I wasn’t able to find any. If you take a multivitamin that contains zinc, you might want to stop it for a few days until your course of cephalexin is finished.
Likewise, if you take zinc supplements or zinc cough drops, it might be a good idea to stop for a few days. However, unless you have a lemonade that is fortified with zinc, it seems like it would be safe to have a glass with your cephalexin.
Cephalexin is safe to take with or without food.
Food is thought to delay and slow the absorption, so drug concentrations might not reach quite as high as taken on an empty stomach, but this probably isn’t clinically relevant. The same amount of total drug is still absorbed.
Thanks for reaching out to us and I hope this helps.
References & sources
- Drug Interaction Report — Lexicomp (Subscription Required)
- Keflex Prescribing Information — FDA
Glossary — Terms in This Answer
- Cephalosporin
- A type of antibiotic medication that works by killing bacteria and is commonly used to treat infections.
- Drug interactions
- When a substance like food or another medication affects how a drug works in your body.
- Bacterial infections
- Illnesses caused by harmful bacteria that can affect different parts of your body.
- Absorption
- The process of a medication passing from your digestive system into your bloodstream.
- Fortified
- When extra nutrients or minerals are added to a food or drink.
- Multivitamin
- A supplement containing multiple vitamins and minerals to support overall health.
- Drug concentrations
- The amount of medication present in your bloodstream at any given time.
- Clinically relevant
- Significant enough to actually affect your health or how well a treatment works.
Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD
Doctor of Pharmacy, board certified clinical pharmacist (BCPS), American Herbalist Guild, Medication Therapy Management certified
Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS, is a licensed pharmacist with more than 13 years of experience across retail pharmacy, clinical pharmacy, medication safety, pharmacy program development, and healthcare administration. He is the founder of HelloPharmacist.com, where he helps patients...
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