Tag: osteoporosis

Vitamin K against osteoarthritis and atherosclerosis

Claus Hancke

August 22, 2005

Researchers recommend Vitamin K supplementation. The need for this vitamin may be even greater than was previously supposed. Vitamin K deficiency leads to weaker bones and calcification of the arteries and vitamin K supplementation will both treat and prevent these problems.

Vitamin K “should be strongly considered as a dietary supplement” for women after menopause and for diabetics, groups which have high risks of developing both osteoarthritis and atherosclerosis. The vitamin is very non toxic and seems to be able to combat these ailments.

This is the very uncompromising conclusion put forth in a new scientific summary of vitamin K which has been published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, which is a serious but lesser known professional journal.

In spite of this journals lack of prominence, it’s very direct message regarding vitamin K will spread throughout the world. It was quickly published in its entirety by www.medscape.com the worlds largest website for doctors. Medscape has millions of readers worldwide.

Vitamin K is found almost exclusively in green vegetables. It is practically nonexistent in other foodstuffs. It was previously believed that the bacteria in our intestines hold us well supplied with the vitamin. This is not the case!

It is officially recommended (in the USA) that one has an intake of no less than 100 micrograms vitamin K daily, corresponding to about 75 grams green salad, spinach, etc. This is supposedly enough for the blood to coagulate properly.

But according to the article ensuring proper coagulation is far from enough. The vitamin is just as important for bones and arteries, and its optimal effect requires much more than officially recommended. In studies with vitamin K1, 10 times the official recommendation (10,000 micrograms) is typically used. This can be done worry free, there are no side effects. No effects have been reported, even when 45,000 micrograms K2 was used per day, 400-500 times recommended, for up to many years.

Vitamin K is responsible for making certain proteins able to bind to calcium. This occurs by the vitamin attaching mild acids (carboxyl groups) to the protein enabling it, like a type of crane, to pick up and move calcium to where it is needed. The protein which has this effect in bones is called osteocalcin and is produced with the aid of vitamin D. With the help of a weak acid osterocalcin can pick up calcium from the blood and place it in the bones. Vitamin K has long been used in Japan to counteract osteoarthritis.

In clogged arteries, for example the coronary arteries, the opposite occurs. It is believed that vitamin K counteracts the depositing of calcium in these vessels by adding a certain protein to the same acids. If the protein is missing or damaged and inaccessible to the acid, the blood vessel clogs quickly. This has been shown in animal studies. Normally the “crane” removes calcium from the arteries so they do not become clogged.

That there is a protein which prevents atherosclerosis and that vitamin K is necessary for its production is a very revolutionary theory. The theory is supported by Dutch research. In a three year long randomised study on older women, half received a daily dose of 1,000 micrograms vitamin K while the rest unknowingly received placebo.

The stiffness of the women’s carotid arteries was measured before and after the three years as a measure for the degree of arthrosclerosis. After the three year period this was unchanged in the women who received the vitamin K whereas nature had marched on in the rest of the women. Their arteries became 8% stiffer.

The strange phenomenon where calcium disappears from the bones and is accumulated in the arteries with age is called the “calcification paradox.” Aging phenomena are without a doubt a part of the explanation, but vitamin K deficiency is probably also contributory. It is without a doubt important to consider this paradox.

Important
If you receive strong blood thinning medicine such as Marevan, you should unfortunately avoid vitamin K supplements. Any such supplement can counteract your treatment and be life threatening.

By: Vitality Council

References:
1. Adams J, Pepping J. Vitamin K in the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis and arterial calcification. Am J Health-Syst Pharm 2005;62:1574-81.
2. Braam LA et al. Beneficial effects of vitamin D and K on the elastic properties of the vessel wall in postmenopausal women: A follow up study. J Thromb Haemosta. 2004;91:373-80.

www.ajhp.org
www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp
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Supporting Evidence: B-vitamins Strengthen the Bones

Claus Hancke

March 18, 2005

A year ago a correlation between osteoporosis, folic acid and Vitamin B12 deficiency was discovered. It might have been a statistical coincidence, but a Japanese study discovered that the two vitamins reduced the risk of bone fracture by 80%.

Just a year ago, Dutch and American researchers demonstrated that at high homocysteine level – which is very common and most often a consequence of folic acid or vitamin B12 deficiency – the risk of breaking the hip doubles. It was only a statistical context, but was there also a causal link?

Can folic acid and/or vitamin B12 really reduce the risk of hip fracture, i.e. the most dangerous consequence of osteoporosis?

Few have considered this possibility before, but for now it seems to be a possibility. Japanese doctors have suspected this for at least five years. In 2000, they began a two-year treatment trial to investigate the matter.

The trial included 628 particularly vulnerable, elderly patients who received a solid dose of the two vitamins: 5 mg folic acid and 1.5 mg vitamin B12 per day. However, half received placebo (inactive tablets). The 628 were selected because they had had a stroke and were still more or less paralyzed on one side after a year. In this situation, the risk of breaking the hip is doubled, especially since the risk of falling is high.

Over the two years, it was recorded how often the participants in the two groups fell. They did so equally often. But the consequences were much milder in those who received the supplement. Only six of them suffered a hip fracture, while the same happened to 27 in the control group. The risk was therefore reduced by more than 80%. In the treated group, the blood level of homocysteine fell by a good 30%, while it increased by the same amount in those who received the inactive tablets.

B deficiency destroys connective tissue
There is a lot of talk about the argument that homocysteine is dangerous for bones. The new thing is that it is useful to lower it if it is high. Not because it will add more calcium to the bones. According to a Dutch study from 2004, it does not. On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that the bone tissue you have will become stronger.

Biochemical experiments have shown that homocysteine attacks both elastic and other fibers in bone and connective tissue, so that the structure becomes looser, the interweaving of fibers less tight and the bones more rigid. Fibers of the same type are also found in the arteries, which can also be damaged, and chemically similar proteins participate in blood coagulation. Some believe that this explains the increased tendency for blood clots in the heart, etc., which is seen with elevated homocysteine.

The argument is supported by the fact that blood clots and weakened bones occur particularly early in people with the congenital disease “homocystinuria,” in which the blood level of homocysteine is 10 times higher than normal. The difference between them and others, it is said, is only the time at which the damage occurs.

If the Japanese study is confirmed, folic acid and vitamin B12 are simply the most effective protection against osteoporosis known! In any case, it is certainly not unwise to have your homocysteine level measured in your blood. It should not be much higher than 10 micromol/liter.

By: Vitality Council

References:
1. Sato Y, Honda Y, Iwamoto J, Kanoko T, Satoh K. JAMA. 2005 Mar 2;293(9):1082-8. Effect of folate and mecobalamin on hip fractures in patients with stroke: a randomized controlled trial.
2. Krumdieck CL et al. Mechanisms of homocysteine toxicity on connective tissues: Implications for the morbidity of aging. J Nutr. 2000;130:365S-368S.
3. Van Meurs Joyce B J et al. Homocysteine levels and the risk of osteoporotic fracture. N Engl J Med 2004;350:2033-41.
4. Mc Lean Robert R et al. Homocysteine as a predictive factor for hip fracture in older persons, N Engl J Med 2004;350:2042-9.

jama.ama-assn.org
content.nejm.org

B Vitamin (Folic Acid) May Strengthen the Bones

Claus Hancke

August 2, 2004

The vitamin B substance folic acid (Vitamin B9) may be able to counteract osteoporosis. This is concluded by an American and a Dutch population study, which were simultaneously publisized in the medical magazine The New England Journal of Medicine.

Folic acid prevents neural tube defect (spina bifida) which is a serious and relatively frequent congenital malformation. Moreover, it is assumed that the vitamin counteracts coronary thrombosis, strokes, and other sequelae from atherosclerosis. Folic acid deficiency is quite widespread. One of the results of folic acid deficiency is that the blood level of the amino acid homocysteine is raised to abnormal high levels.

In the Netherlands, a group of 2,406 people above the age of 55 located in Rotterdam and Amsterdam were followed over a period of up to nine years.

In the American study which was part of the well-known Framingham study, 1,999 elderly people participated and were followed for 15 years. In addition to fractures, a large number of other significant factors in the development of osteoporosis were registered: Smoking habits, age, height and weight, consumption of coffee and alcohol, calcium- and vitamin D intake, oestrogen supplements, etc.

The two studies demonstrated that a high level of homocysteine was linked to an increased risk of suffering hip fractures. Both studies showed that people who belong to the top 25% with regards to high homocysteine levels in their blood have twice as large a risk of breaking their hip as the ones who have much lower levels of homocysteine.

Several conditions point towards a cause and effect relationship here. For example, it was statistically rejected that the risk was related to and biased by other known causes of osteoporosis, such as smoking, a lack of dietary calcium, etc.

It is also known that osteoporosis is a pronounced phenomenon in the hereditary disease homocystinuria in which the levels of homocysteine are particularly high. Finally, it has been demonstrated in laboratory experiments that homocysteine weaken the cross-links in the wickerwork of connective tissue around which the bones are built.

According to the Dutch results, a high level of homocysteine – and thereby a resulting lack of folic acid – might be the cause of approximately 19% of all hip fractures!

By: Vitality Council

References:
1. Van Meurs Joyce B J et al. Homocysteine levels and the risk of osteoporotic fracture. N Engl J Med 2004;350:2033-41.
2. Mc Lean Robert R et al. Homocysteine as a predictive factor for hip fracture in older persons, N Engl J Med 2004;350:2042-9.
3. (Editorial) Raisz LG. Homocysteine and osteoportic fractures – culprit or bystander? N Engl J Med 2004;350:2089-90.

content.nejm.org
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