Vitamin K2 GAME-CHANGING Human Study — Transcript

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1. 0:00A groundbreaking vitamin K2 study has
2. 0:02just been published with important
3. 0:04implications for our health. So, let's
4. 0:07dive into the paper and then I'll share
5. 0:09with you what I personally do with
6. 0:11vitamin K2 supplements. Let's get into
7. 0:13it. Overall, vitamin K2 is needed to
8. 0:16activate a group of proteins called GLA
9. 0:19proteins. And by activating these
10. 0:21proteins, the hope is that we can stop
11. 0:23our blood vessels and other tissues in
12. 0:25our body from calcifying. Because these
13. 0:27GLA proteins, they make sure that the
14. 0:29calcium stays in our bones as opposed to
15. 0:32our blood vessels. That is the hope. And
16. 0:34when I recently did a vitamin K2 video,
17. 0:37I explained that there were two crucial
18. 0:39trials that I was looking forward to
19. 0:41reading. And this is one of them. It's
20. 0:44published in the journal of circulation,
21. 0:46and it's called vitamin K2 and D in
22. 0:49patients with aotic valve calcification,
23. 0:51a randomized double blind clinical
24. 0:54trial. and it was published on the 25th
25. 0:56of this month this year 2022. Now when
26. 0:59going through trials like this a quick
27. 1:01hack to work out if it's a good robust
28. 1:04trial is to have a look at the journal
29. 1:06that it was published in. So the fact
30. 1:08that this paper is published in the
31. 1:09journal of circulation I know going into
32. 1:12this paper that it's likely going to be
33. 1:14a robust trial. It starts by saying that
34. 1:17calcific stenosis is the most common
35. 1:20valvular heart disease in highincome
36. 1:22countries. So, I see a lot of this in
37. 1:24the clinic. Essentially, it's where the
38. 1:26aotic valve, which is one of the valves
39. 1:28in the heart, it becomes calcified and
40. 1:30stiff. It gets narrow. And although
41. 1:32several trials have attempted to prevent
42. 1:34the aortic valve from becoming
43. 1:36calcified, there's currently no success.
44. 1:39What we do know is that calcification of
45. 1:41the aotic valve is a slowly progressive
46. 1:44process of great complexity and it's
47. 1:46caused by an imbalance between the
48. 1:48mechanisms that promote and stop this
49. 1:51deposition of calcium which brings us on
50. 1:53to vitamin K2. So like we've gone
51. 1:55through vitamin K2 it's the most
52. 1:57effective co-actor to help prevent
53. 2:00arterial calcification. So again the
54. 2:03process of our blood vessels becoming
55. 2:05blocked and calcified. And we can see
56. 2:07from previous trials that a combination
57. 2:09of low vitamin K and vitamin D status,
58. 2:12it has been associated with increased
59. 2:15all cause death risk compared to people
60. 2:17that have got adequate levels of vitamin
61. 2:20K and vitamin D. So let's go through how
62. 2:23the study was conducted. So it was an
63. 2:25investigator initiated multic-enter
64. 2:28randomized doubleblind placeboc
65. 2:30controlled study at four separate Danish
66. 2:33hospitals. It included people aged 65 to
67. 2:3674 and they were screened for this
68. 2:38calcium buildup using a CT scan. And I
69. 2:41really like that. It means we're
70. 2:43selecting the correct patient
71. 2:45population. So what we want to see is
72. 2:47people that have already got some
73. 2:48calcium in that aotic valve and we're
74. 2:51hoping that vitamin K2 and D can
75. 2:54hopefully reduce or slow down the
76. 2:56progression of that calcium buildup. A
77. 2:59computer randomly assigned which
78. 3:01participant would go into which group.
79. 3:03So again, we've got two separate groups
80. 3:04here. The group that's taking vitamin K2
81. 3:07and vitamin D, as well as the placebo
82. 3:09group, and the placebo tablet had
83. 3:12identical appearances to the tablet that
84. 3:14had vitamin K2 and vitamin D. So the
85. 3:17patients were randomly put in a 1:1
86. 3:19ratio to either daily supplementation of
87. 3:22vitamin K2 in the MK7 version which is
88. 3:25the version that I take but they were
89. 3:27using quite a high dose 720 micrograms
90. 3:30and they were also taking vitamin D
91. 3:33which was 25 micrograms every day.
92. 3:35Patients were followed up for 24 months
93. 3:38and they went under a clinical
94. 3:39examination every 6 months and this did
95. 3:42include a CT scan. Remember, we're using
96. 3:45the CT scan to measure the calcium
97. 3:47buildup in that aortic valve. This study
98. 3:50was designed to be able to detect a 20%
99. 3:53difference in the progression of the
100. 3:55aortic valve calcification score. So, I
101. 3:57really like this. They've actually used
102. 3:59a robust method to work out how many
103. 4:02patients they actually need in this
104. 4:04trial to detect a difference. And the
105. 4:06number that they came up to was 354
106. 4:09patients. And of the 365 patients that
107. 4:12were originally included in the study,
108. 4:14333 completed the study. So that's quite
109. 4:17good. We want to make sure that any
110. 4:19trial that we're doing, we don't have a
111. 4:21large dropout because if those patients
112. 4:23are dropping out of the study, maybe
113. 4:25they're getting side effects or maybe
114. 4:27there's some other reason for them to
115. 4:28drop out. So the fact that a lot of
116. 4:30these patients completed the study means
117. 4:33that we've got a good data set. We can
118. 4:35also see that the vitamin K2 groups and
119. 4:38the placebo groups are roughly the same.
120. 4:40So, we do know that we're comparing
121. 4:42apples to apples in this trial. So,
122. 4:44let's go straight to the primary
123. 4:46outcome. Did vitamin K2 and vitamin D
124. 4:49slow down the progression of this
125. 4:51calcium buildup in the aotic valve?
126. 4:54Well, unfortunately, there was no
127. 4:56treatment effect for vitamin K2 and
128. 4:59vitamin D on the progression of this
129. 5:01calcium buildup. So that is a really
130. 5:03disappointing result. And in addition,
131. 5:06there were no significant changes in the
132. 5:07sensitivity analysis after analyzing the
133. 5:10333 patients who completed the study. So
134. 5:14even patients that started the study
135. 5:15with already quite bad calcium buildup,
136. 5:18there was no significant benefit of
137. 5:20taking vitamin K2 and vitamin D. And in
138. 5:23the secondary outcomes, there was no
139. 5:25difference in the effect of vitamin K2
140. 5:27plus vitamin D. The study goes on to
141. 5:29conclude that they demonstrated that the
142. 5:31combination of vitamin K2 and vitamin D
143. 5:35is not effective in the prevention of
144. 5:37the calcium buildup for the aotic valve.
145. 5:40Overall, what we've got here is a really
146. 5:42welldone study. It's robust. We can rely
147. 5:44on the methods that these authors used
148. 5:47to come up with their data. And
149. 5:48unfortunately, the data simply does not
150. 5:50support the idea that vitamin K2 and
151. 5:53vitamin D can help prevent the calcium
152. 5:55buildup in the aortic valve. It's a
153. 5:58really disappointing finding. So what
154. 6:00are the possible reasons for this
155. 6:02disappointing finding? Because the
156. 6:03hypothesis is so good that if we can use
157. 6:06vitamin K2 to activate the GLA proteins
158. 6:10and therefore those proteins can stop
159. 6:12the calcium building up in our blood
160. 6:14vessels and keep that calcium in our
161. 6:15bones. That's a really strong idea. So
162. 6:18why does this data not support it? One
163. 6:21possible explanation for these negative
164. 6:23results could be that they chose to
165. 6:25treat with either too low a dosage or
166. 6:27for too short a duration, but they did
167. 6:30use quite a high dose here, much higher
168. 6:32than what I personally supplement with.
169. 6:34And they did follow these patients up
170. 6:36for 2 years. The authors could also see
171. 6:38a significant difference in the
172. 6:40activated GLA proteins. So, this
173. 6:42suggests that the dose of vitamin K2, it
174. 6:45was sufficient. The authors do say
175. 6:47though that it's possible that the
176. 6:49calcification process of the aortic
177. 6:51valve is more complex, includes
178. 6:54mechanisms that may not be blunted by
179. 6:56vitamin K, but future trials may want to
180. 6:58pre-seelelect patients that have a low
181. 7:01vitamin K status and follow them up for
182. 7:03a longer time frame. Now, I do want to
183. 7:05mention that all hope isn't necessarily
184. 7:08lost when it comes to vitamin K2
185. 7:10supplements. It might be that the
186. 7:12calcium buildup around the aotic valve
187. 7:14is too complex and it's not just vitamin
188. 7:17K2 and vitamin D that will affect that
189. 7:20process. So for example, a recent
190. 7:22publication demonstrated that the aortic
191. 7:25valve calcification progression, it
192. 7:27doesn't associate with coronary artery
193. 7:29calcification. That is the one that I'm
194. 7:32particularly interested in. I want to
195. 7:34make sure that my patients blood vessels
196. 7:35around their hearts are clean as
197. 7:38possible and therefore can reduce the
198. 7:40chances of heart attacks. And therefore,
199. 7:43we do not believe that our findings
200. 7:45should discourage such trials because
201. 7:47this process may demonstrate important
202. 7:49differences from those occurring at the
203. 7:51aotic valve. Just to sum things up, in
204. 7:54conclusion, supplementation with vitamin
205. 7:56K2 in the MK7 form plus vitamin D in
206. 8:00patients with severe aotic valve
207. 8:02calcification, it was not effective in
208. 8:05reducing the progression of that calcium
209. 8:07buildup over a 2-year period. And while
210. 8:10that is a disappointing finding, I'm
211. 8:12really pleased that the authors have
212. 8:13published this data, it also doesn't
213. 8:16necessarily mean that vitamin K2 can't
214. 8:19be used to slow down the calcium buildup
215. 8:21in the blood vessels around the heart.
216. 8:23I'm really excited for that trial to
217. 8:26come out. Personally, I will still be
218. 8:28using vitamin K2 supplements. So, I use
219. 8:31the MK7 version and I take around 120
220. 8:34micrograms every day. I do this because
221. 8:37there is some data to suggest that it
222. 8:39helps to strengthen the bones and it may
223. 8:42help reduce the calcium buildup in the
224. 8:44blood vessels around the heart. And I'm
225. 8:46eagerly awaiting data to either support
226. 8:48or deny that idea.