Hi I take digestive enzymes with two meals daily because they help me feel less bloated and tired after eating. I really do not want to stop taking them. Also, I am supposed to start taking two extended release meds: Wellbutrin XR and Xanax XR. My main concern is that the enzymes will cause the XR meds to release immediately rather than gradually, putting too much med in my system at once and then not having all day efficacy like it should. I have called several pharmacists and physicians and have gotten different answers from everyone which is frustrating!!!! Some say no- the pills are broken down according to PH, some say yes it breaks down the enteric coating. AHHHHH!

I have even contacted several of the manufacturers of the enzymes with no response. Does anyone know for sure, or can someone point me to research on this topic. Can't seem to find info online. Thanks sooooooooo much!!!!

The answer is that they could both be right.

There are some pills with a coating on them. that cannot be dissolved within the stomach and are instead released when in the small intestines. This is because the drug itself would not likely survive the acid bath in the stomach and needs to be in a less volatile environment to pass into your blood stream.

Typically though, these are not XR formluations.

Typically XR formulations are going to either be catatonic or anionic meaning that they are broken down through the rate at which various salts are metabolized in your body. This is what the pharmacist meant by being related to their pH levels.

As the various types of salt (HCL's for anionic / K's for catatonic) are broken down and metabolized, the drug is released from the binding resin (salts).

Or something like that, it gets a little fuzzy when you dig deeper than that... Either way, enzymes shouldn't be a problem because they're working on much larger level molecules at that point anyways.