Evidence Against the Involvement of Nutritional Habits in the Inter‐ethnic Variability with Regard to Oral Nifedipine Bioavailability

In order to study if nutritional habits are involved in inter‐ethnic differences in nifedipine pharmacokinetics, the bioavailability of a single oral dose of 10 mg nifedipine was studied in ten Mexican healthy volunteers maintained on a typical Mexican corn‐rich diet and on a Western corn‐free diet according to a randomized cross‐over design. AUC0–12 was 283 ± 31 and 327 ± 32 ng h mL−1 whereas Cmax was 107 ± 12 and 134 ± 11 ng mL−1 for the corn‐rich and corn‐free diets, respectively. There were no significant differences between diets in these parameters. AUC and Cmax values observed in Mexicans with both diets were higher than those reported for Caucasian populations. The results confirm the presence of an inter‐ethnic variability with regard to nifedipine pharmacokinetics. These differences, however, do not appear to be due to nutritional habits. 1995 Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

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