Dosage: 1 serving (1 capsule or 1/8 tsp) 1x daily or as directed.

The Ingredient – Vitamin K2 (MK7)

Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin used in the treatment of Vitamin K deficiency caused by broad-spectrum antibiotics, cephalosporins, and prednisone. It is also supplemented combined with other vitamins when malabsorption is present.

Unfortunately, vitamin K’s role in blood coagulation has seriously dampened its career as a vitamin that does anything else.

More recently, the research has been shifting to Vitamin K2’s ability to play a significant role in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.

Vitamin K2 helps to guide calcium towards areas of the body where it is needed such as the skeletal system, and away from areas like arteries where it could have a negative affect (arterial calcification).

Arterial calcification is an important independent risk factor for the development of health concerns including atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, and renal disease.

The best natural source of vitamin K2 is derived from the Japanese food called Natto, made from fermented soybeans.

Scientists have found out that vitamin K2 plays a role in the production of two proteins, osteocalcin and matrix Gla protein (MGP). These are crucial players in the creation of dense bone and maintenance of its structural integrity. MGP has also been shown to inhibit calcification of arteries.

Researchers believe there are at least one hundred of these proteins scattered throughout the body. Vitamin K is the only vitamin that makes these proteins work.

Vitamin K achieves a process on the proteins called “carboxylation”, which gives the proteins claws so they can hold onto calcium. Once the protein grabs onto calcium, it can be moved. Proteins that don’t get enough vitamin K can’t hold on to calcium. Without a functioning protein to control it, calcium drifts out of bone and into arteries and other soft tissue. Vitamin K2 gently redirects the “lost” calcium back to the bone bank.

Clinical research has demonstrated significant protection of bone strength with vitamin K2, and long term human research revealed that increased dietary intake of natural vitamin K2 significantly reduced the risk of coronary heart disease mortality by 50 percent while vitamin K1 had no effect at all.

Vitamin D plays several roles in bone; one of them is provoking the osteocalcin gene into action. Once synthesized, however, osteocalcin needs vitamin K to function properly.

Although vitamin D has gotten a lot of press as the bone vitamin, bone maintenance requires many factors; among them, parathyroid hormone, estrogen, calcium and calcitonin (another thyroid hormone). When all of these factors plus vitamin K are present in adequate amounts, the skeleton will be totally replaced every 8 to 10 years with good, dense bone.

Vitamin K, in all its various forms, has been shown to have anticancer and antioxidant actions.

Natural vitamin K2 as menaquinone-7 (Mk-7) is a bioavailable, bioactive and long lasting form of vitamin K.

Vitamin K has been approved in Japan for the treatment of osteoporosis since 1995.

The ideal dose seems to be 45mcg per day.

Bad bones, like bad arteries, are a big problem for healthcare. Between them, they soak up billions of dollars.

Vitamin K2 is one of the most exciting vitamins of this decade. By keeping calcium bone where it belongs, vitamin K2 may help prevent heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease and more.