Food -drug interactions are well studied, however much less is known about cuisine -drug interactions. Non-native cuisines are becoming increasingly more popular as they are available in (almost) all regions in the world. Here we address the problem of how known negative food -drug interactions are spread in different cuisines. We show that different drug categories have different distribution of the negative effects in different parts of the world. The effects certain ingredients have on different drug categories and in different cuisines are also analyzed. This analysis is aimed towards stressing out the importance of cuisinedrug interactions for patients which are being administered drugs with known negative food interactions. A patient being under a treatment with one such drug should be advised not only about the possible negative food -drug interactions, but also about the cuisines that could be avoided from the patient's diet. T he task of identifying and obtaining foods which contribute to the overall human health, satisfy nutritional and energy needs and at the same time not inducing food poisoning, has been around as long as humans have. Human diet, which provides essential nutrients for the organism health, is influenced by different factors, including cultural habits, socio-economic status, and weather/climate. For example, spice consumption in the warm regions is tightly connected to the need for keeping the food resistant to bacteria for a longer period of time 1 . It is a well known fact that certain foods can influence the effect of a drug in an organism [2] [3] [4] [5] . The food-induced changes in the bioavailability (the degree and rate at which a drug is absorbed into someone's system) of the drug modify the clinical effect of the drug. Generally, food -drug interactions can result in significant reduction of the drug bioavailability, either by direct interaction between a substance from the food and a chemical component of a drug, or by the physiological response of food intake (e.g. gastric acid secretion). This can often result in treatment failure. Additionally, food -drug interactions can result in an increase in drug bioavailability, either by increased drug solubility as a direct result from a substance from the food, or indirectly, by food-initiated secretion of gastric acid or bile. Even though this leads to an increase in the effect of the drug, it can often result in serious toxicity 2 . The highest selling drugs in the world include antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents, respiratory system drugs, alimentary tract and metabolism drugs, cardiovascular system drugs, and nervous system drugs 6 . Recent statistics report that nearly 70% of the American population consumes at least one prescription drug, a number which was only 48% in 2010. Twenty percent of them are on five or more drugs 7 . According to Ref. 8, an alarming number of 1.5 million people are harmed by medications, including the errors due to the lack of information provided by the pharmacist or the unawareness of the patient to read and follow the patient drug information. Different world regions use diverse ingredients and foods as part of their cuisines and therefore the negative food-induced interactions with drugs vary from one part of the world to another. In addition, as non-native cuisines are becoming increasingly popular (due to travel and due to their appearance in almost every corner of the planet as a result of global cultural exchange), the effect different cuisines have on certain drugs or categories of drugs is becoming very important. Although food -drug interactions are well studied, much less is known about cuisine -drug interactions. The food -drug interactions are clinically proven interactions between a drug and a given ingredient (ex. milk, avocado, garlic), and with cuisine -drug interactions we define the interactions between a drug and a world cuisine, using information extracted from the food -drug interactions and the usage of the interacting ingredients in a specific cuisine. The aim of the analysis presented here is to address the distribution of the known negative food -drug interactions in the world cuisines. The influence that world cuisines have on different drug categories is analysed by transforming and connecting two datasets (drug data and recipes data) into a novel structure empowered with the concept of Linked Data 9 . The results are striking: North American cuisine has the most OPEN SUBJECT AREAS:
We have also used Linked Data for an analysis of the connections between drugs and their interactions with food, and recipes from different national cuisines, resulting in findings that uncovered the ingredients and cuisines most responsible for negative food-drug interactions in different parts of the world REF .
Inferring Cuisine - Drug Interactions Using the Linked Data Approach
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