A new study finds elderly women are half as likely as elderly men to receive the blood-thinning drug warfarin to treat irregular heartbeats.
Irregular heartbeats can lead to slower blood flow, which can in turn increase the risk of stroke.
Doctors say warfarin is the most effective medication for preventing strokes and offers more benefits than aspirin, yet researchers found that older women were twice as likely to be prescribed aspirin instead of warfarin. Researchers in Canada gathered information on 339 women and 560 men who had irregular heartbeats or atrial fibrillation. They looked at the participants' symptoms and performed heart function tests. They found women over the age of 75 were 54 percent less likely to receive warfarin. To their surprise, researchers found that women are more likely than men to have bleeding problems from taking warfarin.