Why vitamin K2 is important for strong bones

Of course, you know your child needs a diet rich in nutrients to be healthy, grow, and thrive…

….but we all can feel overwhelmed just by the thought of how to provide that nourishment to support optimum health and growth.

Let’s start by learning about important nutrients, if and how we can achieve sufficient intake through our daily meals, and why supplementing might be considered under certain circumstances.

While probably best known for its blood-clotting function vitamin K has way more to offer

Vitamin K is actually a group of fat-soluble vitamins consisting of K1 (phylloquinone), K2 (menaquinones), and K3 (menadione). K1 is primarily found in leafy green vegetables, while K2 is found in fermented foods and some animal foods. Vitamin K2 can also be produced by bacterial fermentation in our intestines. K3 is a man-made synthetic form, which has been shown to cause organ damage and is therefore banned by the FDA in human OTC-supplements. It might be still used in animal feed (dog and cat food, livestock).

While the liver uses vitamin K1 to activate blood-clotting proteins, vitamin K2, on the other hand, is primarily used to help calcium be deposited where it should be. In the bones and cartilage, and not in soft tissue like blood vessels and kidneys. The most studied and known forms of vitamin K2 are MK-4 and MK-7.

Besides contributing to strong bones, vitamin K also plays a role in keeping our heart (1), brain (2), and kidneys healthy. The benefits of vitamin K are endless and also associated with a lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome, which includes insulin resistance and elevated blood glucose levels (3).

Vitamin K2 plays an important role in pediatric health

Childhood is the time of bone growth. That’s why this vitamin plays an important role in pediatric health. Research shows that vitamin K2 deficiency is very common among infants and children.  Generally, we associate calcium with strong bones but research shows that low vitamin K intake enhances fracture risk (4).

A vitamin K deficiency during pregnancy can cause newborns to be deficient in vitamin K too. Vitamin K crosses poorly the placental barrier and MK-4 is preferred over K1 (5). Studies have found that maternal supplementation with vitamin K can help improve a newborn’s vitamin K status (6).

A nourishing foundation

There is no way around a nourishing foundation to help children grow and mature into healthy adults.

A major step in bone development happens between childhood and adolescence. Up to 90% of peak bone mass is created by age 18 in girls and age 20 in boys. Studies have shown, in order to build strong and healthy bones in children, optimum bone mineralization is required which can only occur in the presence of adequate vitamin K2.

A time of rapid growth usually requires more nutrients (7). This can be achieved by serving leafy greens with every meal, adding spinach to a smoothie, eating fermented foods, or taking a K2 (MK-7) supplement.

Causes of vitamin K2 deficiency

Deficiency can have multiple reasons. A lack of vitamin K rich foods, disturbed fat digestion, and poor gut health are some of the problems which might contribute to deficiency, but there is another big factor leading to weak bones.

Who would have thought that fortified foods could be bad for us? Excessive intake of calcium and/or vitamin D can mess with our bone matrix. Today’s foods are not only laden with sugar and additives they also tend to be fortified with large amounts of calcium and vitamin D.

Calcium and vitamin D are for sure important nutrients, however, excessive consumption of it in the absence of vitamin K2 can lead to calcium built up in soft tissue like arteries, instead of in bone matrix (8). Vitamin K2 is crucial to help calcium to get on its way into the bone matrix. Increased bone mineral density does prevent bone fractures in children and adults.

Although a deficiency of vitamin K used to be rather rare, environmental factors, food manufacturing, and increasing intestinal disorders might impede vitamin K intake and absorption.

Recommendations for vitamin K2 supplementation

The optimum way to get nutrients is, no question, through the foods we eat, but as mentioned before there might be disturbing factors, which make supplementation necessary.  Picky eating, malabsorption, medications, imbalanced eating, fortified foods, all of that can lead to insufficient intake of our daily required nutrients.

If you or your child is taking a calcium or vitamin D supplement I would definitely recommend combining it with a vitamin K2 product. When looking for a vitamin K supplement, it is good to know that research has shown that the K2 form MK-7 has shown better results than MK-4 and even vitamin K1 for half-life, bioavailability, and safety for children.

Supplementation with MK-7 is an effective way to improve vitamin K2 levels in children and adults over the age of 40 (9). In those age groups, research showed the greatest vitamin K2 deficiency and the highest responses to vitamin K2 supplementation.

A two-year study from 2008 found that children with superior vitamin K levels were more likely to have stronger and healthier bones than children with poor vitamin K status (10). A year later, those same researchers found that 8 weeks of supplementation with vitamin K2 (MK-7) was sufficient to significantly improve vitamin K status in healthy pre-pubertal children (11).

Vitamin K is broken down very quickly and excreted in urine or stool. Therefore it rarely reaches toxic levels in the body even with high intakes, as may sometimes occur with other fat-soluble vitamins.

Ask your family doctor or medical professional of your choice about dosage recommendations.

Food sources of vitamin K

The highest food source of vitamin K is natto (fermented soy), followed by leafy greens (collards, bok choy, turnip greens, spinach, kale), broccoli, and smaller amounts in fermented dairy products, organ meats, and eggs.

References

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9052783
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8785182
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25835288
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11706280
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1627060
6. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/126354-overview
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24296867
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566462/
9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24296867
10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18279558
11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19450370