Out of all of the proposed benefits from taking vitamin K2, there’s one that has the strongest evidence and is the reason why I personally take 90mcg of vitamin K2. But a tantalizing new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that there might be an addition benefit from taking vitamin K2.
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Here are the links to the research papers referenced in the video:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6413124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747195/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16801507/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2674866
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23346882/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683650/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23525894/
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.057008?af=R
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494092/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25694037/
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacadv.2023.100643
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminK-HealthProfessional/
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Out of all of the proposed benefits from taking vitamin K2 there’s one that’s got the strongest evidence and is the reason why I take 90 micrograms of vitamin K2 but a tantalizing new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that there might be an additional benefit from taking
Vitamin K2 Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin and it’s named after the German word coagulation spelled with a K because it was thought that vitamin K was only useful for clotting but the health benefits of this micro nutrient have been shown to extend beyond just blood clotting while vitamin K1
Primarily works in the liver vitamin K2 is redistributed around the body and activates a group of proteins called GLA proteins these proteins are thought to help keep our calcium in our bones as opposed to our other organs but before we go through this new study we need to
Address some controversy if vitamin K2 does indeed help keep our calcium in our bones what evidence do we have that vitamin K2 helps to strengthen our Bon bones and reduce fractures because while we’ve got a metaanalysis published in 2006 claiming that vitamin k does help to prevent fractures and strengthen
Bones many of the individual trials that were included in that analysis theyve been retracted because of problems with their methods and subsequent trials have also been retracted again because of problems with the study methods you can see that this area is not without controversy luckily though we do have
Some robust trials for example we have this one published in 2009 it was a randomized double blind Placebo control trial but interestingly it found that the vitamin K supplements they didn’t improve bone strength the trial used the MK4 version of vitamin K2 which we’ll talk about later in the video at quite a
High dose of 45 Mig daily and all participants received daily calcium and Vitamin D supplements so why did the study fail and why am I still excited about vitamin k2’s effects on bone strength well this study only ran for 12 months which when you’re looking at bone bone strength that’s a really short
Duration plus it used the MK4 version of vitamin K2 which is not the preferred version and it used an extremely high dose and if you contrast that to a 2013 study that ran for 3 years and used the mk7 version of vitamin K2 we see very different results for this study the
Authors used a much more reasonable 180 microgram dose of vitamin K2 and we can see significant improvements in the age related decline in bone mineral density both both in the lumbar spine and the femoral neck so the hip bone as such the European Food Safety Authority has
Approved a health claim for vitamin K noting that a cause and effect relationship has been established between the dietary intake of vitamin K and the maintenance of normal bone so we do have evidence that vitamin K2 can help keep the calcium in our bones but that BS the question if we can use
Vitamin K2 to keep the calcium in our bones does that mean we can use vitamin K2 to prevent calcium buildup in other parts of our body that it shouldn’t build up for example the valves in our heart or our blood vessels let’s start by addressing the heart valve question
Before we look at the new study that looked at blood vessel Health as we age many of us will start to develop calcifications around our heart valves hardening them not what we want so in 2022 a randomized double blind placeo control trial was done and it was published in the Journal of circulation
It was looking to see whether vitamin K2 supplements reduce the calcification buil up around the aortic valve the trial was conducted at four separate Danish hospitals and compared 720 microG of vitamin K2 in the form of mk7 plus vitamin D to a placebo and the study ran
For 24 months but surprisingly there was no treatment effect seene there was no difference between the placebo group and the treatment group even in a subgroup analysis where the scientists were looking to see whether there would be certain groups that may benefit from vitamin K2 supplements there there was
No treatment effect seen But while that study result is very disappointing it’s a different story for blood vessel Health we got the first hints that vitamin K2 may be able to improve blood vessel Health from observational studies such as this one it followed just under 5,000 people for a 7-year period And it
Observed that the people who had the higher intakes of vitamin K2 had lower rates of all cause death rates and heart disease but it’s important to remember that that was just an observational study many different founding variables can skew the results from an observational study what we need are
Randomized control trials well in 2015 a randomized double blind Placebo control trial of the mk7 version of vitamin K2 showed that it did improve arterial stiffness in women and the dose used in the study was 180 microgr but now let’s look at the newly published study it was
Performed by the same group of people who did the aortic valve study they started by measuring the calcium buildup in the blood vessels and then split the participants into two groups one receiving the placebo and the other group receiving vitamin K2 and vitamin D after a 2-year period there appeared to
Be no difference in the progression of the calcium buildup in the blood vessels between the vitamin k group and the placebo which sounds initially disappointing but then you read a bit further during the 2-year study period the calcium buildup in the placebo group was 254 units whereas in the vitamin K2
Group it was only 200 103 units so yes this didn’t reach statistical significance but there’s a strong Trend towards Improvement so the authors reanalyzed their results and if they only included participants with a calcium score of above 400 then there was a significant difference between the placebo group and the vitamin K2 Group
Which sounds incredibly exciting but we need to be careful calcium buildup in our blood vessels is generally a late stage finding of atherosclerosis or the process of blockages developing in our blood vessels so let me backtrack for a second when blockages start to develop in our blood vessels the body tries to
Stabilize those blockages by laying down calcium so if we’re interfering with that calcium buildup will that mean that our blood vessel blockages become unstable and can rupture and cause heart attacks that’s an important safety consideration which is why this study also looked at the progression of non-calcified plaque buildup or
Non-calcified blockages in our blood vessels so in the placebo group during the 2-year study period it progressed by 46 units whereas in the vitamin K2 group there was actually a decrease in the amount of plaque volume to further explore safety the authors found that in the placebo group 8% of the participants
Experienced a worsening of their blood vessel blockages whereas that number was only 4.5% in the vitamin K2 and vitamin D group so I’ve gone through a lot of information now let’s try and pull it all together because it’s incredibly exciting for people that already had significant calcium buildup in their
Blood vessels it seems that vitamin K2 reduced that calcium progression but because this process of calcification is thought to stabilize vulnerable soft plaque the authors did additional analysis to make sure that vitamin K2 wasn’t causing harm the analysis showed that the non-calcified blockages in the blood vessels progressed in the placebo
Group while in the vitamin K2 group there was a small shrinkage of those blood vessel blockages moreover there was a significant reduction in the safety events in the vitamin K2 group compared to Placebo overall the study provides tantalizing evidence that we might be able to use vitamin K2 supplements to prevent calcium buildup
In our blood vessels but while this is exciting it’s not a done deal yet and multiple studies are going on right now to confirm or disprove these findings for example two ongoing Dana studies will hopefully contribute to more knowledge about the effect of vitamin K2 supplementation one study is looking at
Whether vitamin K2 supplements can reduce the progression of calcium buildup in our blood vessels over a 3-year period and another trial is looking at highrisk people who have already got significant calcium buildup in their blood vessels in conclusion the study found that vitamin K2 supplements for high-risk individuals seem to reduce
The progression of calcium buildup in the blood vessels but it’s important to note that this study represents novel interesting and hypothesis generating findings that need to be further studied and investigated but the signs are looking positive now when you’re looking at the vitamin K2 research you may see other claims like anti-cancer or
Anti-inflammatory but when I looked at the research these claims lacked evidence so for me there are not reasons why I supplement with vitamin K2 let’s now have a look at safety and then I’ll go through why I take the mk7 version of vitamin K2 according to the NIH supplement database no Adverse Events
Have been associated with vitamin K2 consumption from food or supplements but there are important interactions with blood thinners specifically warrin so make sure to check with your own doctor first the recommended daily intake for vitamin K1 is 120 microG but no recommendations have been made for vitamin K2 we lack the research so
Personally I prefer to use the lower dose of 90 microG while we wait for that further research to come available plus while vitamin K1 is found in leafy green vegetables vitamin K2 is primarily found in fermented products such as Nat and cheese so depending on your diet it can
Be a bit difficult to get vitamin K2 which is another reason and why I chose to supplement with vitamin K2 in terms of why I chose the mk7 version of vitamin K2 it’s because out of all of the other versions it’s the most efficiently absorbed and Exhibits the greatest bioavailability it’s also got
The longest halflife of all of the different forms meaning that it sticks around in your body for longer to summarize I take 90 microgr of vitamin K2 as part of the multivitamin and mineral called microvitreoretinal does not in any way mean that you should as well please make
Sure to speak with your own doctor first I created microvi so that it was easier for me to take all of the specific supplements that I wanted to take including vitamin D magnesium and zinc I’m here to present the research to you and what I’m personally doing in
Response to that research and should have absolutely no bearing on what you choose to do with your own health and if you wanted to explore a severely underrated supplement that I also take make sure to check out this next video here and massive thank you to all of the
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