Can a Medicine's Inactive Ingredients Be Harmful?

Though we take medicines for their active ingredients, the inactive ones can affect us, too -- from allergens to sugars to animal-based gelatin capsules. Learn how a compounding pharmacy can help in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
lauring vocal bomb. Here people turn to medications to help
them feel better, but sometimes the inactive ingredients found in
prescriptions can have just the opposite effect. While you might
assume that only the active ingredients in a prescription are
going to have any impact, the inactive components, which often

(00:22):
make up more than half of every dose, can affect
you as well. The inclusion of inactive ingredients isn't optional, however,
they perform necessary functions. They can help extend the life
of the drug on the shelf or make drugs more palatable.
Enactive ingredients are also necessary to simply hold the components
of a tablet together, and there are critical part of
many sustained and immediate release capsules. The actual active drug

(00:46):
ingredients are usually only a small percentage of the complete drug.
Many times potentially problematic inactive ingredients are everyday allergens like lactose,
peanut oil, dyes, sugars, and preservatives. Lactose and other types
of sugars appear in about half of all medications and
can cause gastro intestinal distress and patients. Other ingredients like

(01:06):
gluten and peanut oil are less common, but can cause
much more severe reactions. So here's the good news. If
you think you have an allergy, and especially a severe
allergy to any of these components, you can consult an
allergist to obtain a diagnosis, and then work with your
doctor or pharmacy to identify what commercial medications contain inactive
ingredients that you're sensitive to and what alternatives are available.

(01:30):
Another option for people with specific requests who want an
added layer of security is to turn to a compounding
pharmacy to fill their prescriptions. Before drugs were manufactured in mass,
one size fits all quantities, all medications were compounded. That is,
when a prescription came in, the active ingredient was handweighed
and packaged specifically for the individual patient. So if you

(01:50):
want to avoid gluten, or dyes, or peanut oil or
all of the above, a compounding pharmacist can put it
all together in a way that's in line with your
needs and preferences. Gelatine capsules have become something of a
sticking point for people who wish to avoid animal products
for personal or religious reasons. This is because gelatine is
typically derived from mammal products, and often from cows. But

(02:10):
these days alternatives made from other sources are available, capsules
made from fish or vegetable products like seaweed. Our bodies
are not one size fits all, and our medication doesn't
have to be either. Today's episode was written by Ali A.
Hoyt and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a
production of iHeartMedia's How Stuff Works. For more on this

(02:33):
and lots of other topics, visit our home planet, how
stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts from my
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