THE February 2020 WARFARIN, FROM POISON TO LIFE SAVER
FRANKLIN warfarin. The fault in this method of pest control is that the effects of warfarin bioaccumulate into the birds and other animals that consume the poisoned rats which can then transfer through the food chain, even reaching humans. Warfarin is also used to reduce the population of vampire bats in some areas.
Heather McManus Year 9 Science correspondent Warfarin is a drug used as a blood thinner. It has rather contrasting uses as both a life-saving drug and a pesticide. This naturally found miracle is not widely known outside the world of doctors and patients. History In the 1920s, cattle in Canada and the northern United States were suffering from an outbreak of an unrecognisable disease. This disease would cause the cattle to haemorrhage after minor injuries or operations. These animals would often bleed to death or bleed for a long time before the wounds would clot. In 1921, it was discovered that the cattle were being fed mouldy food made with sweet clover which was acting as an anticoagulant. This anticoagulant was not identified until 1940 at the University of Wisconsin. The scientist, Paul Link, and his students managed to isolate the substance from the spoiled feed and work out its chemical properties. They continued their work to make a more concentrated version to be used as rodent poison. This resulted in 1948 with the production of Warfarin. It got its name from the acronym WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) and –arin from coumarin.
Poison From 1948, Warfarin was used as a rodent poison. It is tasteless and odourless, making it the perfect poison to use. The rats eat the food and then bleed to death after suffering the anticoagulant effects of
Medicine Warfarin was approved for medical use in humans in 1954. Now, approximately 1% of people in the UK and 8% of people over the age of 80 years old take warfarin daily. It is used by people who are at risk of blood clotting, for example people who have had strokes or people who have had certain
operations and as a result have low motility and high risk of clotting. People take a certain dose of warfarin once a day, usually in the evenings. Warfarin is somewhat difficult to manage as it is hard to get the correct dosage and there are many foods that affect its effectiveness in the body. People’s warfarin levels are managed by taking their INR (International Normalised Ratio) which is a measure of the time it takes for blood to clot. A normal person has an INR of around 1-1.5. People on warfarin will normally be given a range of between 2 and 3 though it can sometimes be higher. One of the main inconveniences of taking warfarin is that vitamin K does the opposite of warfarin and helps the blood clot. This means that if a patient consumes too much vitamin K, the effects of warfarin are stopped. Foods that are high in vitamin K include green leafy vegetables like kale, broccoli and cabbage. Patients taking warfarin must pay attention to what they eat as, too much vitamin K can cause their INR level to drop, putting them more at risk of a blood clot. Other foods, such as cranberry juice and alcohol have the opposite effect