The Missing Nutrient to Blame for Heart Attacks and Osteoporosis (Nope - NOT Calcium or Vitamin D)
Posted By Dr. Mercola | March 26 2011
By Dr. Mercola
The past decade has
The Missing Nutrient to Blame for Heart Attacks and Osteoporosis (Nope - NOT Calcium or Vitamin D)
Posted By Dr. Mercola | March 26 2011
By Dr. Mercola
The past decade has brought an explosion of research revealing the many beneficial roles vitamin D plays in keeping you healthy.
But there's a new kid on the block that could end up being "the next vitamin D," and we are finding that some of vitamin D's benefits are greatly enhancedwhen combined with this other vitamin.
That "new kid" is vitamin K.
Much new research is now focusing on the synergy between vitamin K (specifically, vitamin K2) and vitamin D3, particularly in terms of bone strength and cardiovascular health.
Before discussing the influence of each of these vitamins, let's review a bit about vitamins D and K and what their roles are.
Vitamin D: A Brief Review
Vitamin D is a key player in your overall health. The name is misleading -- it isn't actually a vitamin at all but a potent neuroregulatory steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 of your 25,000 genes.
It literally turns on and off genes that can exacerbate -- or prevent -- many diseases. Vitamin D has been shown to influence dozens of conditions, including:
|Diabetes 1 and 2||Multiple Sclerosis||Crohn's disease|
|Cold & Flu||Inflammatory Bowel Disease||Tuberculosis|
|Septicemia||Signs of aging||Dementia|
|Eczema & Psoriasis||Insomnia||Hearing loss|
|Muscle pain||Cavities||Periodontal disease|
|Osteoporosis||Macular degeneration||Reduced C-section risk|
One of the key factors explaining today's high rates of chronic disease, besides poor diet and sedentary lifestyle, is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. It is estimated that 85 percent of Americans have insufficient levels of vitamin D.
Sadly, when the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) released their updated recommendations for vitamin D (and calcium) on November 30, 2010, it caused shockwaves of disappointment through the natural health community.
According to the IOM, the new recommended daily allowance (RDA) for pregnant women and adults up to 70 years of age is the same as that for infants and children -- a measly 600 IU's. This despite the overwhelming evidence showing that vitamin D is extremely important for a wide variety of health conditions besides bone health, and that most people need about ten times this amount or more.
For more information about the IOM's new vitamin D recommendations, please see this recent articlein which Dr. Cannell, founder of the Vitamin D Council, and Carole Baggerly, founder ofGrassrootsHealth, share their concerns.
The best ways to increase your vitamin D levels, in my order of preference, are by:
- Exposing your skin natural sunlight. Vitamin D from sunlight acts as a pro-hormone, rapidly converting in your skin into 25-hydroxyvitamin D, or vitamin D3.
- Using a safe home tanning bed like the Sun Splash to achieve similar results as that from natural sunlight exposure.
- Taking an oral vitamin D3 supplement whenever natural sun exposure is not an option.
Vitamin K Basics
Vitamin K may very well end up being as important for you as vitamin D, as research continues to illuminate the growing list of its benefits for your health. Vitamin K is probably where vitamin D was ten years ago, with respect to its appreciation as a vital nutrient that has far more advantages than originally thought.
And, according to Dr. Cees Vermeer, one of the world's top researchers into vitamin K, nearly everyone is deficient in it -- just like most people are deficient in vitamin D.
Most of you get enough K from your diet to maintain adequate blood clotting, but NOT enough to offer protection against the following health problems -- and the list continues to grow:
Arterial calcification, cardiovascular disease and varicose veins Brain health problems, including dementia (the specifics of which are under study) Osteoporosis Tooth decay Prostate cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer and leukemia Infectious diseases such as pneumonia
Vitamin K exists in two basic forms, K1 and K2:
- Vitamin K1: Found in green vegetables, K1 goes directly to your liver and helps you maintain a healthy blood clotting system. (This is the kind of K that infants need to help prevent a serious bleeding disorder.)
- Vitamin K2: Bacteria produce this type of vitamin K. It is present in high quantities in your gut, but unfortunately is not absorbed from there and passes out in your stool. K2 goes straight to vessel walls, bones, and tissues other than your liver.
Making a long story even longer, there are several different forms of vitamin K2: MK4, MK7, MK8, and MK9. The form of vitamin K that has the most significance for our purposes here is MK7, a newer and longer acting form with more practical applications.
Most vitamin K2 supplements are in the form MK7.
MK7 is extracted from the Japanese fermented soy product called natto. You could actually get loads of MK7 from consuming natto as it is relatively inexpensive, and is available in most Asian food markets. Few people, however, tolerate its smell and slimy texture, so most people who find natto unpalatable prefer to take a supplement. You can also get MK7 by eating fermented cheeses.
For a comprehensive explo