Although Vitamin K does not resonate with the same familiarity as Vitamins E or C, it is slowly but steadily gaining recognition from scientific and preventive health communities towards an increasingly essential status. The science behind Vitamin K as a blood coagulant is universally well established, and has also become increasingly fundamental in the area of bone health –albeit usually at higher dosages. Vitamin K has also begun to make its presence felt in the field of skin health and, according to a recent study, may also be a factor in the prevention of prostate cancer.
The latter is based on a large-scale German correlational study involving 11,319 men spanning 8 ˝ years. The study examined both dietary and supplemental intakes of Vitamin K and notably made a distinction between the two central types of Vitamin K – K1 (phylloquinone) and K2 (menatetrenone). The former is more prevalent in our diet and is found in green, leafy vegetables such as broccoli, lettuce and spinach, where as K2 is often found in fermented foods such as cultured butter, certain types of cheese, and most particularly in a Japanese soybean delicacy known as natto. In addition to being directly available from these dietary sources, Vitamin K2 can also be synthesized in the body from K1 to a certain degree. In recent years, it has become generally accepted that K2 is the preferred form of Vitamin K in mammals.
That finding was further reinforced by the aforementioned study, which evaluated the association between both Vitamin K forms and “total and advanced prostate cancer in the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.” Researchers observed 268 cases of prostate cancer in the follow-up phase of the study, 113 of them advanced. While no relationship between prostate cancer and Vitamin K1 consumption could be found, the scientists did establish that Vitamin K2 consumption was associated with a 35% lower risk of prostate cancer development. These scientists pointed out, however, that in the overall context of the study, this finding (although notable) was ‘non-significant’. Of greater significance was the fact that this inverse relationship between Vitamin K2 consumption and prostate cancer risk increased to a 63% risk reduction when only advanced cases of prostate cancer were analyzed.
Source: Nimptsch K,et al. “Dietary intake of vitamin K and risk of prostate cancer in the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Heidelberg).” Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Apr;87(4):985-92.
For more information, see Vitamin K2
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