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Warfarin - BAD advice. 10 minutes in the penalty box for unlicensed practice of medicine.

I have a license. It was my second choice at 4 AM.

Warfarin works on the Vitamin-K dependent clotting factors (II, VII, IX, and X) in the blood plasma, not on the platelets. No evidence whatsoever that it prevents heart attacks.

Warfarin sodium, aka coumadin, is another drug that inhibits the formation of blood clots, i.e. anticoagulation. Unlike aspirin, you can't get it over the counter. Since it works on the Vitamin-K dependent clotting factors, it is very sensitive to diet. A doc prescribing it will require frequent blood testing.

In case you were considering Heparin or it’s low-molecular analogs, they act on plasma antithrombin through its inhibition for factor Xa. So that doesn’t work well either.

Heparin or it’s low-molecular analogs require daily injections.

"That study evaluated the risks and benefits of aspirin in the primary prevention of heart disease in almost 40,000 women. It reported a 23% reduction in the risk of ischemic stroke with aspirin use, but no significant benefit for heart attack."

Primary prevention reduces the risk of the first morbid event, in this case either ischemic stroke, aka ischemic cerebrovascular accident(CVA) or "heart attack," aka myocardial infarction. Persantine, aka dipyridamole, and Ticlid, aka ticlopidine, are other prescription, oral antiplatelet drugs.

Besides aspirin, I don't know if they have data supporting these other drugs used for the primary prevention of CVAs or myocardial infarctions. All of them increase the risk of bleeding complications such as ulcers and hemorrhagic CVAs. Hemorrhagic CVAs cause about ten to fifteen percent of strokes, but they tend to have a worse prognosis for those who survive them as opposed to ischemic CVAs which account for about eighty percent of strokes.

I have a license. It was my second choice at 4 AM.

My apologies. Gotta watch that posting while sleep-deprived. I agree with you on aspirin. No one has published any studies that show Plavix or any of the other platelet inhibitors prevent events as far as I know.

I trained under Dr. Tinsley Harrison back in the 70's and he believed heparin would prevent recurrent cardiovascular events, so much so that he injected himself with it every day. He never had another heart attack as far as I knew, but he developed fairly severe osteopenia from the heparin and suffered several fractures due to it.