Now a new study from Montreal suggests warfarin and green leafy vegetables should not be considered deadly (Nutrition 2019, The Annual Meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, June 8-11, 2019). The experts who conducted this research suggest that people would do better to eat more green leafy vegetables if they keep their vitamin K intake consistent.
What They Did:
The trial involved 46 patients taking warfarin. They all had a history of difficulty maintaining consistent anticoagulant activity. For six months half of the patients were given nutrition and cooking classes with a general focus on improving nutrition. They were the controls.
The other half received nutrition and cooking classes focused on increasing the amounts of green vegetables and other vitamin-K rich foods in the diet. After six months, half of those who had increased their vitamin K intake had stable anticoagulant levels..."
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Dmactds
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I have not read the original research and may modify my comments when I have. My first reaction was a big yawn. You do not need to be a scientist to understand what is going on. There are two major sources of Vitamin K in the body: gut bacteria and food. The gut bacteria provide half or more of the Vitamin K -- not food. Then you add in the food item. A larger amount of Vit K in the food + gut mean that there is greater stability in the system. That makes it easier to control your warfarin.
In school chemistry terms, the gut+food provide a buffer. When the buffer is large, then the system is more stable than when the buffer is small.
This is probably why some people can have an extremely variable diet and stay stable -- the hypothesis is that their gut bacteria dominate. Others need to pay more attention to food.
Rather a strong comment about considering green vegetables deadly! But not sure whose words they are. I am not in warfarin but from people I know the key seems to be a stable diet so things can be balanced. Alcohol can also destabilise INR as well.
From when I was on warfarin I know that the important thing was consistency. Green leafy foods in themselves are not dangerous with warfarin. The problems occur if you make large changes to your diet. There are a very small number of things that you must not have, but that is all made clear before you start taking warfarin
Warfarin is strange stuff. For some people consistency seems to be important, but not for others. I have a very erratic diet and meal times. I can go for weeks with loads of greens, then go to the other extreme because there is a gap in the availability of greens as the seasonal greens change over. I can binge on my favourite: brussel sprouts. Does it make a difference? Possibly, and I have not measured often enough to notice. So what does help for stability? The use of breakable half-milligram tablets, so that I can fine tune the dosing down to 0.25mg. This has made a huge difference, and reinforces my skepticism that food intake matters.
Green leafy veg deadly,I don’t think so. I’ve been on warfarin for over 20 years and eat green leafy veg tho is roughly about the same each week, I’m certainly not going to measure it, life’s too short for that!!!
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