Many natural foods contain vitamins that have some medicinal value. The vitamin C found in many fruits is a powerful antioxidant, and the folates in leafy green vegetables can help prevent birth defects. Honey contains some antioxidant properties and if you have ever had tea with honey when feeling ill, you know that it soothes a sore throat. But honey is not a substitute for blood-thinning medications.
Blood Thinners
The medications called blood thinners come in two forms: anticoagulants and antiplatelet. Neither actually makes your blood any thinner than it is normally. Instead, anticoagulants keep your blood from forming clots of its own proteins inside your body. Antiplatelet medications keep your blood cells from sticking together, which can lead to heart attack or stroke.
Vitamin K
Foods that contain high levels of vitamin K can keep your antiplatelet drugs or anticoagulants from working properly. Blood clots require specific proteins manufactured by your liver in order to form. Your liver uses vitamin K to help form the proteins. Blood thinners inhibit these proteins from being made, so if you are eating extra vitamin K you are working at cross-purposes with your medications. Vitamin K is found in dark green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, and in fish and liver.
Honey
Honey contains 181 nutrients in trace amounts. Honey is mostly made of two kinds of sugars: fructose and glucose. These are the same sugars you find in refined table sugar, but they are chemically different in that the fructose and glucose molecules are separate in honey and linked together in table sugar. This means that honey metabolizes a little more slowly than refined sugar. Honey is very low in vitamin K, so it will not interfere with blood thinners, and there is nothing in honey that would thin your blood on its own.
Warning
Do not give raw honey to children younger than 1 year, because of the danger of botulism. Do not attempt any kind of alternate medical therapy without consulting your physician.
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