Vitamin K2 is found in chicken egg yolk, butter, cow liver, certain cheeses and fermented soybean products such as natto, the best source of vitamin K2.Vitamin K2 is the most biologically active form of vitamin K, a vitamin that has anticancer properties, but is also known as "the forgotten vitamin" as very few supplements on the market contain it, and those that do contain very small amounts.
It is also the most beneficial form of vitamin K for bone health maximization.
Synthetic vitamin K2 (menatetrenone, or menaquinone-4 (MK-4)) may improve a group of blood disorders known as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).
It also ameliorates cytopenia in patients with refractory anemia of myelodysplastic syndrome.
Vitamin K2 and its derivatives induce apoptosis in leukemia (CML) and lung cancer cells and enhance the effect of all-trans retinoic acid.
Vitamin K2 is also useful in the treatment of liver, colon, stomach, nasopharynx, breast, prostate, lymphoma, bone and oral cancers.
Synthetic vitamin K2 (menatetrenone, or menaquinone-4 (MK-4)) is hard to find at local health food stores, but high dose supplements can easily be purchased over the internet, or can be obtained by prescription. The doses used for myelodysplasia and leukemia range from 20 mg to 135 mgs per day, with 45 mgs per day being the average. The time required before obtaining some hematologic improvement after initiation of vitamin K2 therapy ranges from 1 to 3 months.
It should be taken with a fat, such as organic coconut milk, to make it more bioavailable, or should come in a gel cap, like vitamins D and E.
Vitamin K2 is completely non-toxic and has no side effects, even at very large doses.
Natto is particularly rich in the highly bioavailable form of vitamin K2 called menaquinone-7 (MK-7).
Natto provides natural vitamin K2 as menaquinone-7 (MK-7), which is the most bioavailable form of K2 available, and also has the longest half-life in the blood. This provides optimal vitamin K status with a recommended daily dose of just 45-90 mcg.
You can buy the natural vitamin K2 through Dr. Mercola:
Fight Cancer With Vitamin K
Natto: The Fermented Soybean That Fights Cancer and Hot Flashes.
Vitamin K2 has also been linked to osteoblasts, the cells that generate or "lay down" bone and produce a specific protein known as osteocalcin:
Vitamin K2 Prevents and Reverses Bone Loss
Life Extension Magazine article on Vitamin K2, March 2008
Vitamin K2 is normally produced by bacteria in the intestines, and dietary deficiency is rare, unless the intestines are heavily damaged or are unable to absorb the molecule, such as in malabsorption syndromes, or through the chronic use of drugs/medications, alcohol or antibiotics.
Natto also contains nattokinase, a very popular enzyme used against cancer and clots.
UPDATE 07/03/08: Since I posted this blog entry, there have been numerous visits to my site by people searching for natural treatments for myelodysplasia and leukemia, and iHerb keeps running out of it's high-dose Carlson Vitamin K2. Please put yourself on the list to be notified when they are back in stock. It seems that they re-stock it every couple of days, but it sells out very fast, within hours. So, order fast when you are notified by email that they have it in stock again! You should take Carlson K2 with an oil to make it more bioavailable, as it is synthetic.
LEF Nutritional Supplementation for Specific Forms of Leukemia
For non-leukemia cancers:
Kiran Krishnan (see the comments to this blog entry) recommends Dr. Mercola's vitamin K2 or Swanson's K2 called MenaQ7, at 100 mcg. per day.
Safety of Vitamin K2 with Respect to Hypercoagulation in Humans:
From a large number of clinical trials using dosages in excess of 40 mg/day, there were no reports of side effects associated with any type of hypercoagulable state. (1,27,35.36) Both animal and clinical studies support the conclusion that vitamin K2 has no abnormal hemostatic activity. In one study, vitamin K2 given to rats at a dose of 250 mg/kg body weight per day for 10 days resulted in no appreciable change in blood coagulation characteristics or platelet aggregation. (37)
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4 comments:
Subject: nattokinase and vitamin K2
Hi Dana,
My name is Kiran Krishnan and I am a Microbiologist/Biochemist working in the dietary supplement industry. I came across your blog describing you ordeal with dental work and that you are looking to take nattokinase to get rid of the clot you seem to have.
I actually introduced nattokinase to the U.S. back in 2000 as I was working in product development for a Japanese Enzyme company. I have been studying nattokinase and vitamin K2 for the past 8 years and thus I am very familiar with all the products (versions) out there in the market place. Unfortunately there are many ineffective products out there as many companies put out nattokinase and vitamin K2 supplements that are essentially fake and dont have any activity. This is done because of lack of knowledge of the ingredients and pricing pressure. We get low cost suppliers coming in from China offering ingredients they call nattokinase or K2 and because the supplement companies are not knowledgeable enough to test, they simply put the products out onto the shelves.
If you would like advice on where to look for real product, please let me know.
thanks,
Kiran
YES!
Thank you Kiran!
May I post this email on my blog, along with your advice on how to find the real product?
I have fibrin clots like are like hard strings that run from the bottom of my jawbone down my neck and degenerative bone marrow in the right mandible.
I know some holistic dentists who would probably love to know where to find the real stuff too!
Dana
Re: nattokinase and vitamin K2
Hi Dana,
Please feel free to post the email and advice on your blog. I have been working hard with several companies to try and ensure good, effective product gets into the hands of consumers; unfortunately, all too often, business gets in the way.
Both Vitamin K2 and Nattokinase are incredibly powerful products that can help many people. Incidentally both come from the food Natto - the Japanese Super Food. There is an incredible body of research on Vitamin K2 (over 350 published studies) and a growing body of work on nattokinase. I have been involved in the design and implementation of 3 nattokinase clinical trials and I have seen some amazing results. Nattokinase has certainly been shown to target clots and can do so via 3 mechanisms. First it can itself dissolve a clot (although the full intact enzyme has not been identified in the circulation after oral administration), it does increase the expression of our endogenous clot busting enzyme - plasmin. Lastly, it increases our pro-Urokinase pathway, which also leads to dissolution of clots. Here is the problem with many products on the market; they use other protease enzymes that can give a result in a laboratory activity assay, but no physiological activity. I know m!
any
companies that use these other enzymes because they are significantly cheaper. Unfortunately it is not cheap or easy to produce nattokinase in commercial quantities and thus the per kilo cost is high and in order to maintain significant profits, many companies use other enzymes to act like nattokinase. This is a huge disservice to consumers who are spending their hard earned money to purchase a product to improve their lives.
Regarding Vitamin K2, it has only recently hit the market (about 2 years ago) and already we are seeing several companies putting product out there that does not contain any vitamin K2 at all. The big problem here is the identification method. The standard method used is a HPLC method for which you need a pure sample of vitamin K2; there are only 2 locations in the world that have a pure sample and thus are able to conduct the test accurately. There are several companies putting out product without getting verification from either one of these locations. Thus, when their product is pulled off the shelf and tested properly, we find that they either contain a significantly low amount or no vitamin K2 at all. The consumers would never know all this and would never know to ask either, they simply trust a brand and spend their money; unfortunately many of these brands are cheating their customers. Unfortunately persuading companies to use quality material, even if it means less m!
argin,
is very difficult to do. Thus, it may be more effective to get this kind of info out to the consumers directly. Remember, the supplement industry is loosely regulated by the FDA and thus you don’t always get what you think you are buying.
I won’t name the companies and brands that I know are putting out inferior material as doing so can certainly lead to legal action as these companies will work hard to protect their image. I will however make a recommendation of a place to find good quality products. We (me and my research and manufacturing team) are working with a handful of companies and currently conducting over 9 new clinical trials that involve both vitamin K2 and nattokinase. Thus as we progress along, I will keep you up to date of results and also issues surrounding quality.
For a vitamin K2 and a nattokinase product, I would recommend Dr. Mercola's website and product; go to www.mercola.com
Cardio Essentials is his nattokinase product and Vitamin K2 is labeled as is.
I will find other good options as well and forward when I do. For the clot, you want to take 4000FU per day of nattokinase - that is up to 200mg per day. Such acute symptoms require higher doses. Please let me know how it goes.
thanks,
Kiran
I must say I hated Natto when I first tasted it. But after learning of its health benefits I've come to love it. I need it for my vitamin k2. Also complementing it with this k2 supplement.
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