Hi, I'm Margaret Martin at MelioGuide, and today, I'm here to talk about one of my favorite
things, which is something that helps bones.
And the topic today is on vitamin K2, specifically.
I was recently listening to a podcast and featured on the podcast was Dr. Goodman, who
was primarily talking about heart health because he is a lipidologist, a specialized cardiologist
of New York.
And he actually, in his podcast, was explaining the importance of K2, not just for the heart
and the blood vessels, but for our bones.
And I was like, "Wow, really?"
Because I had so often heard about vitamin K and the importance of K in bone health,
but I never understood it.
So, one of the things that he explained was that vitamin K's role is to, on a simplistic
way, keep the calcium that is important in our diet, out of our blood vessels and in
our skeleton.
And so, the way in which it does that is that we have a protein called osteocalcin that
is floating around in our bloodstream, and it's really important in bone building.
And it needs calcium to help build bone, but it needs a byproduct to help that calcium.
And that byproduct...not really byproduct, I guess it's a cofactor, it's a helper in
the calcium so that the calcium can bind to the osteocalcin, so that it can build our
bone, but that helper is vitamin K.
And so, it's like of a sudden, like, well, that so makes sense in terms of studies where
people are taking lots of calcium, but they never looked at how much K they were taking,
and the calcium was coating their arteries.
And so, where everybody was concerned about how much calcium everybody's getting, and
not looking at all the other essential nutrients in our diet.
So, you might be wondering, "Where do we get vitamin K?"
So, vitamin K comes in a lot of wonderful foods that we already recommend for bones,
kale and spinach, and green, leafy vegetables such as Chinese cabbages.
All these things that are already, you know, very great in terms of alkalinity.
It also is present in soy and olive oils, some fish, and eggs.
So, you know, you might want to do the math one day, and figure out how much K you're
getting on a regular basis in your diet.
And if you feel like you're not getting enough K, you might be wondering even how much you
should be taking.
So the recommendation by Dr. Goodman for postmenopausal women is in the range of 180 micrograms per
day.
So, if you are not getting that level in your diet, you might consider supplementing.
So then, the next question is, what type of K do I supplement with?
Because there are many types of K on the market.
So, the most bioavailable appears to be, or beneficial, is K2.
And when it comes to K2, there's even, sort of, a division as to what type of K2.
There's an MK4 and MK7 and it appears that MK4 has been used as the type of vitamin K
in many studies, but that MK7 is, you know, just one step better in that it appears to
have a longer half-life from MK4.
But I think either one would be a very beneficial addition to your bone health.
And so, word of caution, one is...and I'm not as sure about the MK7 in terms of people
who have a soy allergy because MK7 is derived from fermented soy, so it's bacteria that
comes from fermented soy.
And the other word of caution is for individuals who are on anticoagulants.
So, it's not that K is negative for someone who's an anticoagulant, even though K is very
essential for blood clotting.
It's more that...it's important that you're on a steady state of K.
So, if you're started on anticoagulant therapy, and you're already on a supplement, make sure
you speak to your doctor.
But as long as you're maintaining that level of K throughout your anticoagulant course,
then it actually seems to actually enhance the Coumadin, or whatever anticoagulant medication
you happen to be given.
As with all supplements that you're considering to add into your diet, you should speak with
your pharmacist or your physician about adding the K2.
And so, I hope that this information on K2 gives you one more piece to your puzzle in
making sure that you have optimum bone health.
Thanks for tuning in.