Is There A Natural Alternative To Coumadin?

For some reason, doctors would have you believe that Warfarin (Coumadin) is a better and safer treatment than Vitamin E therapy for the prevention of strokes.

[Special Note: It is very important that people taking ‘blood-thinning’ drugs such as Coumadin, talk with a knowledgeable doctor before switching to Vitamin E therapy.]

Unfortunately, despite the research, there aren’t many medical doctors well versed on the topic of Vitamin E therapy vs. Coumadin. And this is very sad because if a patient is requesting a more natural form of therapy and the doctor is “skeptical” of using Vitamin E, the doctor could simply monitor the status of the patient’s blood via Pro time (Hematology) tests to determine if the more natural therapy might be appropriate.

It can’t be stressed enough! It is imperative that the natural form of Vitamin E be used and never the synthetic! 

When used in higher dosages (1600 – 4000 IU), Vitamin E potentiates the effects of Coumadin (Warfarin), making Vitamin E a completely safe substitute for the drug.

I have personally found this to be true.

I had a patient whose medical doctor wanted to put him on Coumadin. The patient chose to use a Vitamin E therapy instead, and his doctor was shocked when the hematology tests came back. The test results looked as though the patient was already taking the drug! When the doctor learned that the Vitamin E had produced the exact same result that he would have expected from Coumadin, he was dumbfounded! How could an inexpensive little vitamin do the job of a pharmaceutical drug?

This story isn’t simply a fluke. There are many other stories just like this one!

Despite stories such as this, warnings that Vitamin E may cause death are reiterated over and over again on the internet. Most (if not all) are quoting from the same one study!

However, nowhere do these warnings mention that this study used synthetic Vitamin E as opposed to natural Vitamin E.

I can’t stress enough that the difference is more than significant.

Since natural Vitamin E (d-alpha-tocopherol) is more than a quarter the availability of synthetic Vitamin E (dl-alpha-tocopherol), you have to take nearly twice as much of the synthetic to get the same effect. So then the dosage is very different.

There is countless research that disproves this one study. So why aren’t we privy to the details of these research studies? Are we really to believe that we should be scared of Vitamin E, and that Coumadin safe?

Let’s look at the “safety” record of Coumadin.

Recently Coumadin was identified as a drug requiring a Black Box Drug Warning by the FDA.

What does that mean exactly?

A Black box warning means that medical studies strongly indicate that a drug carries a significant risk of serious and/or life-threatening adverse effects.

The FDA had Bristol-Myers Squibb strengthen its U.S. label for Warfarin (Coumadin) to include a, “black-box warning about the risk for major or fatal bleeding.”

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices and the Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, conducted a longitudinal Adverse Events Reporting System Review of the FDA’s most dangerous drugs in 2007.

The study concluded that Coumadin is one of the most dangerous drugs on the market today as it is associated with the most serious outcomes. More than 100,000 deaths or disabilities resulted from the use of this drug.

Please go to Coumadin at in the Askapatient database  to read actual horror stories of people who have taken Coumadin. I guarantee you will be shocked!