Vitamin K supplementation may improve anticoagulation (preventing blood clots) control in patients with unexplained instability of response to the popular anticoagulant, warfarin, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Newcastle University in the UK explained that patients receiving warfarin who have unstable control of anticoagulation have a significantly lower intake of dietary vitamin K compared with their stable counterparts.
Researchers hypothesized that supplementation with oral vitamin K would improve stability in patients with previously unstable control of anticoagulation. In the study, 70 warfarin-treated patients with unstable anticoagulation control were randomly assigned in a double-blinded fashion to receive a daily amount of 150 mug oral vitamin K or placebo by mouth for six months.
Measures of stability of anticoagulation control in the six-month study period were compared with those in the six months immediately prior to it. Researchers found that vitamin K supplementation resulted in a significantly greater decrease in standard deviation of international normalized ratio (INR) compared with placebo and a significantly greater increase in percentage time within target INR range.
Additionally, anticoagulation control improved in 33 of 35 (94 percent) patients receiving vitamin K supplementation; of these, 19 fulfilled the criteria for having stable control of anticoagulation. However, only 24 of 33 (72 percent) patients receiving placebo demonstrated some degree of improvement, with only seven patients fulfilling the criteria for having stable control.
Researchers concluded that concomitant supplementation of vitamin K, perhaps through reducing the relative day-to-day variability in dietary vitamin K intake, may significantly improve anticoagulation control in patients with unexplained instability of response to warfarin.
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