Vitamin K for Healthy Bones & a Lean Physique: Rat Study Finds Phylloquinone (K1) & Menaquinone (K2) Ward off Fat Gain and Cut Triglycerides by Half
Until not too long ago, scientists thought vitamin D was all about bone. Every follower of this blog knows that this is a way too narrow perspective on what turned out to be more of a hormone than a vitamin. A recent study ( Sogabe. 2011 ) on the effects of vitamin K supplementation in mice does now suggest that vitamin D's "cofactors" phylloquinone (PK, vitamin K1) and menaquinone-4 (MK-4, vitamin K2) have been similarly mistaken. Figure 1: Weight of visceral fat pad in g after 85 days of phylloquinone (PK, vitamin K1) or menaquinone-4 (MK-4, vitamin K2) supplementation ( Sogabe. 2011 ) Japanese scientists, who wanted to investigate the effect of 85 days of vitamin K supplementation (PK: 600 mg/kg; MK-4: 600 mg/kg) on bone development in mice, were surprised to find that vitamin K did not only improve bone mass and structure, but that... the addition of PK or MK-4 significantly decreased the total fat accumulation ( p < 0.01 and p < ...