Supplements & functional ingredients
It wasn’t till the 1990s that another story began to emerge. As researchers had already understood, K1 is indeed a ‘coagulation vitamin’. But K2 has another purpose: to deposit calcium in the bones and teeth (where it belongs) while keeping it out of the soft tissues (where it doesn’t). There are several different subtypes here, with the MK4 and MK7 variants attracting the most research attention. According to Dr Tao Zhang, a researcher at
Vitamin K2 is sourced from grass-fed animal foods, so the transitioning of livestock to grain feeding has seen vitamin levels tumble.
important health benefits that I had never heard about before,” says Dr Kate Rhéaume, a Vitamin K2 expert and author of Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox – How A Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life. “With more digging, I uncovered a robust body of evidence about Vitamin K2 that had been obscured. Ultimately, I realised that Vitamin K2 provides a missing piece of the puzzle for many people’s health concerns.”
Piotr Jandziak makes a similar point. The general manager of Polish manufacturer Pharmaquinone, he was introduced to the vitamin in 2006, and has been developing Vitamin K2 products ever since. “I think we as the industry could have done better in launching Vitamin K2 to the market,” Jandziak reflects. “But in some large, mature
“When I first came across research about Vitamin K2, I was surprised to learn there was a nutrient with important health benefits with that I had never heard about before.” Dr Kate Rhéaume
markets, like the USA, Germany, and Poland, Vitamin K2 has already entered the mainstream and has become a commodity like Vitamin D3.”
77% NCBI 26
The percentage reduction in the prevalence of hip fractures when trial participants took Vitamin K2.
Keeping calcium in its place The story of K2 began in 1929, when the Danish biochemist Henrik Dam discovered a nutrient he called ‘Koagulationsvitamin’. As the name implied, the vitamin played an essential role in blood clotting. Over the years that followed, researchers established that there were two versions of the vitamin: the plant-sourced K1 (phylloquinone) and the animal-sourced K2 (menaquinone). What they didn’t realise, however, was that K2 had roles beyond just blood clotting – nor that it was anything other than K1 in a different form.
Technological University Dublin, Vitamin K2 appears to act on almost every system in the body. He notes that more than 10,000 scientific papers have been published to date on its physiological functions, meaning that the evidence base is “relatively mature”. “Vitamin K2 has two main functions: calcium regulation and release of energy,” Zhang explains. “Calcium is not only important for bone health, but also is involved in many physiological processes, including heartbeat, nerve transmission, skeletal muscle, smooth muscle, and cardiac muscle contraction. Another aspect is energy. Vitamin K2 supports the function of mitochondria – energy- producing organelles within cells.” Given such broad-ranging effects, it isn’t surprising that deficiency might have unpleasant consequences. One of these is osteoporosis (when there isn’t enough calcium in the bones) while another is atherosclerosis (when the arteries become clogged up with plaque and subsequently calcium). “We usually have a relatively high amount of calcium in circulation, because we need it for our heart to beat, muscles to contract, nerves to fire – not to mention healthy bones and teeth,” says Rhéaume. Unfortunately, calcium can deposit elsewhere in the body too, resulting in heel spurs, kidney stones, or in the worst-case scenario, hardened arteries. Vitamin K2, Rhéaume stresses, “plays a major role in keeping calcium in its place”.
The case for supplementation Viewed this way, it’s easy to see how the so-called ‘calcium paradox’ might emerge. This refers to the fact that, in countries that consume large quantities of dairy products, osteoporosis rates are high (along with rates of stroke and heart disease). In fact, countries with the highest calcium intake also have the highest hip fracture rates – an association that seems baffling when taken at face value. This paradox disappears when you consider that, for those eating typical Western diets, calcium might not always be deposited in the right places. Unless you are also consuming Vitamin D (which helps with calcium absorption) and Vitamin K2 (which directs it to the bones and away from the arteries), you are probably not reaping its benefits. Japan, by contrast, has a relatively low calcium
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
06photo/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90
