Why Supplement Vitamin K1?  Especially Children Who Are NOT Ingesting Liberal Amounts of Green Vegetables!
High levels of a protein called MGP are associated with cardiovascular disease!
Active MGP appears to be the only natural inhibitor of vascular calcification and vitamin K the only known activator of MGP.
When MGP is active, calcium also circulating in the blood, binds to it — instead of the lining of blood vessel walls — so it gets eliminated by the body.
“We know that the lifespan of patients on hemodialysis is reduced, that cardiovascular disease accounts for about half their deaths and that vascular calcification is a key contributor,” says Dr. Norman Pollock, bone biologist at MCG’s Georgia Prevention Institute.
Inactive MGP is what’s circulating in the blood, and the investigators measured those levels in 37 African-Americans on hemodialysis as well as 37 age and race matched healthy individuals. In people on hemodialysis, they also measured arterial stiffness as well as endothelial function, based on the ability of their blood vessels to perform basic functions like expand and contract in response to the body’s demands.
The MCG study appears to be the first to look at the relationship between circulating levels of inactive MGP and these markers in this very high-risk group. The deleterious impact on cardiovascular health they found held even after adjusting for other established risks like diabetes and high body mass index and blood pressure.
Just why the balance of active versus inactive MGP is off in these patients is unknown, but these individuals may simply need more vitamin K to maintain sufficient levels of active MGP, Pollock says.
He notes that their colleagues at R&D Group VitaK, at Maastricht University in The Netherlands, have shown that kidney dialysis does not affect vitamin K levels. Higher calcium levels in the blood also are not a guarantee of vascular calcification, Fain adds.
Heart disease and kidney disease are among the leading causes of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. African-Americans are among those at highest risk for both, and kidney failure significantly increases the risk of heart disease. The reason is very simple – the ingestion of highly acidic foods, such as beef, chicken, turkey, duck, pork, fish and dairy products and eating very little green fruit and vegetables!
Vascular calcification occurs most extensively in individuals with chronic kidney disease, particularly in those on hemodialysis, which is considered lifesaving in patients whose kidneys have failed.
Vitamin K is active only about six hours after it’s consumed, and is found in green leafy vegetables like spinach, cabbage, kale, grasses, as well as olive oil.
Although not yet used clinically, the circulating, inactive MGP measured in the newly published studies is widely considered an indicator of cardiovascular risk. Additionally, measuring inactive MGP levels is the only way currently available to gauge vitamin K levels, which cannot be measured directly.
In October 2017, Pollock and Fain published a study in, The Journal of Nutrition that showed otherwise healthy teens who consumed the least amount of vitamin K had 3.3 times higher risk of an enlargement of the pumping chamber of their hearts and that the chamber pumped out less blood.
To prevent or reverse Vitamin K deficiency and the risk of cardiovascular disease and bone loss it would make sense to begin to supplement Vitamin K1.
To purchase your life saving dose of Vitamin K1 derived from green vegetables go to:
pH Miracle® Vitamin K-1 – capsules
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