While doctors hand out Coumadin like candy, apparently because they have no idea how to get someone’s sticky blood to flow normally, patient’s livers were apparently not briefed on the strategy – an oversight that is likely to injure and speed the onset of age-associated disease. A new article in the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reveals just how vital vitamin K function is to your health.
The Coumadin vs. vitamin K issue is one pitting the mental midgets of Western medicine against the innate wisdom of the human body.
There are 16 known vitamin K dependent proteins. The researchers used knockout mice (mice lacking one or another of these proteins) to determine which vitamin K proteins were most important to survival.
They found that the 5 vitamin K proteins relating to clotting were the most important, as knocking them out caused death to the mice while still in the embryonic phase of development.
Their research showed that the liver regulates the distribution of vitamin K to any of the 16 proteins, and does so on a basis of priority, giving clotting function top priority.
When Coumadin is taken it creates a vitamin K deficiency and the liver responds by channeling available vitamin K to clotting protein function, at the expense of other vitamin K dependent proteins.
The net result is that other functions in the body that require vitamin K are left without enough to function properly. This causes bone loss, arterial calcification, and increased cancer risk. Vitamin K proteins are also an integral part of the overall antioxidant network.
Therefore, long-term Coumadin use is not worth the “benefit” for just about anyone.
Doctors need to get their heads out of the sand. Much of Coumadin prescribing is “cover-your-rear-end” medicine – giving it out because if a person should have a stroke and they weren’t prescribed Coumadin then the doctor is in a situation of legal liability (which is utter nonsense and should not be the case). Coumadin also causes regular repeat office visits to check clotting times via a blood draw, which is a nice cash flow for the doctor as the office visit requires little or no intelligence or time.
I have pointed out in an earlier article that sticky blood may even be protective and that Coumadin actually increases the amount of unstable plaque which actually would increase the risk for a stroke (the opposite of why it is given). I have also pointed out that Coumadin in the short term is the number one drug causing serious injury requiring an emergency room visit or more serious problem (see article FDA Sleeps While Common Medications Poison the Elderly).
The use of Coumadin in general practice is an example of why the general population is rapidly losing confidence in Western medicine. In the current health care debate it is generally agreed that we need to reduce the cost of health care so that more people can be covered with truly needed care. This issue of the inept practice of medicine, based on widely over-prescribing expensive and dangerous medications, is a driving force at the source of the problem of runaway health care costs. Doctor ineptitude is being given a free pass in the current debate so as not to have doctor groups torpedo proposed changes.
The Coumadin vs. vitamin K issue is one pitting the mental midgets of Western medicine against the innate wisdom of the human body.
There are 16 known vitamin K dependent proteins. The researchers used knockout mice (mice lacking one or another of these proteins) to determine which vitamin K proteins were most important to survival.
They found that the 5 vitamin K proteins relating to clotting were the most important, as knocking them out caused death to the mice while still in the embryonic phase of development.
Their research showed that the liver regulates the distribution of vitamin K to any of the 16 proteins, and does so on a basis of priority, giving clotting function top priority.
When Coumadin is taken it creates a vitamin K deficiency and the liver responds by channeling available vitamin K to clotting protein function, at the expense of other vitamin K dependent proteins.
The net result is that other functions in the body that require vitamin K are left without enough to function properly. This causes bone loss, arterial calcification, and increased cancer risk. Vitamin K proteins are also an integral part of the overall antioxidant network.
Therefore, long-term Coumadin use is not worth the “benefit” for just about anyone.
Doctors need to get their heads out of the sand. Much of Coumadin prescribing is “cover-your-rear-end” medicine – giving it out because if a person should have a stroke and they weren’t prescribed Coumadin then the doctor is in a situation of legal liability (which is utter nonsense and should not be the case). Coumadin also causes regular repeat office visits to check clotting times via a blood draw, which is a nice cash flow for the doctor as the office visit requires little or no intelligence or time.
I have pointed out in an earlier article that sticky blood may even be protective and that Coumadin actually increases the amount of unstable plaque which actually would increase the risk for a stroke (the opposite of why it is given). I have also pointed out that Coumadin in the short term is the number one drug causing serious injury requiring an emergency room visit or more serious problem (see article FDA Sleeps While Common Medications Poison the Elderly).
The use of Coumadin in general practice is an example of why the general population is rapidly losing confidence in Western medicine. In the current health care debate it is generally agreed that we need to reduce the cost of health care so that more people can be covered with truly needed care. This issue of the inept practice of medicine, based on widely over-prescribing expensive and dangerous medications, is a driving force at the source of the problem of runaway health care costs. Doctor ineptitude is being given a free pass in the current debate so as not to have doctor groups torpedo proposed changes.