Heart Disease and a Little Help from Vitamin K
Vitamin K: Here's What You Need to Know
The French/Italian/Greek “paradox” isn’t really a paradox at all. Turns out that many of those rich, fatty “sin” foods are abundant in vitamin K2--the only vitamin known to prevent and reverse atherosclerosis (buildup of fat in the arteries).
The popularity of the vitamin D supplement might be compounding the heart disease problem. Vitamin D increases the absorption of calcium from the intestines, which is a good thing for bone health. Then vitamin K2 critical to the next step, escorts calcium away from arteries into bones where it belongs. If the body is deficient in vitamin K2, vitamin D increases arterial calcification because K2 can’t remove it.
Vitamin K2 works by activating many proteins that move calcium around the body. For example:
- Osteocalcin attracts calcium into bones and teeth
- MGP sweeps calcium out of soft tissues like arteries and veins where the mineral is harmful
When vitamin K2 is lacking, the proteins that depend on it remain inactive. The “Calcium Paradox” then gradually rears its ugly head with an insidious decline in bone mineral density and hardening of the arteries. When K2 is plentiful, bones remain strong and arteries remain clear.
Whether your diet creates high or low cholesterol, what really matters is whether calcium-fueled plaque is building up in your arteries, leading to a potentially fatal blockage. It is possible to lessen plaque burden by stimulating more MGP to actively sweep calcium away by taking a vitamin K supplement.
Two distinct forms of vitamin K (K1 and K2) were discovered in the early 1930’s as the factors responsible for helping the blood to coagulate – when you cut your finger, you want the blood at the site to coagulate or you would bleed to death. The letter K came from the German spelling of koagulationIn 1997 researchers reported that vitamin K2 was less important for coagulation and much more important for healthy calcium deposition in bones and prevention of calcification of arteries. In 2007, the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place: vitamin K2 deficiency is very widespread, and this is having a major impact on human health [1].
Vitamin K2 comes in two forms:
- Menaquinone-4 (often expressed as MK-4)
- Menaquinone-7 (often expressed as MK-7)
The studies showing effects on calcium deposits in the arteries were done with 45 mcg of MK-7. Dr. Cees Vermeer, one of the world's top researchers in the field of vitamin K, recommends between 45 mcg and 185 mcg daily for adults [1].
While Vitamin K1 is most abundant in leafy greens, vitamin K2 is most abundant in animal fats and fermented foods. The richest sources of vitamin K2 in modern diets are egg yolks and cheese, especially hard cheeses. Always take the vitamin K supplement with fat since it is fat-soluble and won't be absorbed without it.
If you have a diet high in saturated fats or are genetically predisposed to heart disease, check out my Shop to purchase vitamin K2. If you’d like to dive into your health a little deeper, contact me
on my website
[1] Cranenburg EC, Schurgers LJ, Vermeer C. Vitamin K: the coagulation vitamin that became omnipotent. Thomb Haemost 2007, 98(1):120-25
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Heidi Toy Functional Medicine Blog
Did you know most people didn’t have refrigerators in their homes until well into the 1900’s? It wasn’t even invented for large scale commercial use until the mid 1800’s [1]. So how did people keep their milk cold and make their food last longer? Fermentation. It sounds like a gross concept, because we often associate fermentation with a bad odor, but foods like cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut and pickles are all fermented foods. And those aren’t gross, are they? Well, some might disagree with me about sauerkraut, but that’s beside the point. Fermented foods are digestive aids. Microscopic living organisms in fermented foods help extend the food’s shelf life, enhance flavor, and help the body absorb minerals. These organisms pre-digest the food, getting rid of harmful components, and create more vitamins and enzymes than the food began with. Enzyme-rich foods have many benefits including [2]: Increase digestibility of food we eat Boost immune system Increase alkalinity; neutralizing pH levels Provide a healthy balance of friendly flora in the gut (Learn more about your microbiome in my other blog posts ) Tone the colon and help with elimination Control cravings for unhealthier foods Eliminate toxins and undigested wastes in the body In the “old days,” people use to ferment all kinds of foods through pickling, canning, pasteurization and added salt. Nowadays, however, large scale fermentation has lost many of its nutritious benefits due to the need for speed to get the product on the shelf as fast as possible and as cheap as possible. The only true fermented foods you will find are sauerkraut, kombucha, yogurt and kefir, beans, wine and beer, some meats (such as salami and pastrami), legumes and nuts (such as tofu, soy sauce and miso), sourdough bread, and various kinds of vegetables [3]. Fun facts about sauerkraut: The Germans “stole” it from the Chinese! Sauerkraut (probably not labeled as such for the Chinese, but the same recipe) was one of the main foods for those who built the Great Wall of China. Genghis Khan brought it to Eastern Europe during an invasion. It also contains high levels of vitamin C, and sailors often took it on long journeys to prevent scurvy.
How can we best keep blood sugar stable? Do what our body is designed to do – use fat for energy. Our species did not survive the Ice Age because of vanilla coffee lattes and cheesecake. Throughout most of our history, we ate a diet that was likely 50-70 percent fat. Look at the old family photo albums, specifically pictures of people in the first half of the 1900s, before we had so many processed foods. You won’t see many fat people--in fact, most look darn skinny. If they lived on the farm, they ate lots of eggs, meat, milk, and vegetables out of their own backyards. “Diet foods” were non-existent. Heart disease was almost non-existent. Our metabolism is designed to work much better with fats better than with sugar. Fats provide the slow and steady fuel our body likes to use for energy. Think of fats as a slow-burning log on the fire. One log (i.e. one meal containing fats) lasts for hours. Starchy carbs, on the flip side, are like kindling. You constantly have to throw more twigs (chips, pasta, bagels) to keep the fire burning. The first step is to know your sugars by reading the labels, and then avoid said sugars as much as possible.
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