Vitamin K and musculoskeletal health in postmenopausal women

Abstract

Aside from its important role in blood clotting, vitamin K is an important dietary factor in regulating bone and cartilage mineralization. The vitamin K requirements to maintain musculoskeletal health may be more than the current recommendations and subclinical vitamin K deficiency may be involved in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Observational studies suggest that diets low in vitamin K are associated with increased risk of fractures and osteoarthritis in older adults. However, so far randomized controlled trials of vitamin K supplementation in Caucasian populations have not shown clinically significant improvements in bone mineral density at major skeletal sites. Supplementation with vitamin K may reduce the risk of fractures, but this conclusion comes from clinical trials with methodological limitations. At this time, only one randomized controlled trial has examined the effect of vitamin K supplementation on radiographic hand osteoarthritis and found no overall effect. Large well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed to compare the efficacies of vitamin K1 and K2 on fractures and osteoarthritis among older adults. In summary, currently there is not enough evidence to recommend the use of vitamin K supplements for the prevention of bone loss, fractures, or osteoarthritis in postmenopausal women.

Vitamins K1 and K2: The Emerging Group of Vitamins Required for Human Health

“…Some of the recent review articles suggest that there is insufficient information in the literature to recommend the use of vitamin K1 supplements to prevent bone loss, fractures, and osteoarthritis in humans [52]. Researches looking at these effects when supplementing vitamin K1 on bone density and vascular calcification are generally negative or show no difference.…”

Relation between Vitamin K and Osteoporosis

“…Gla proteins that are not fully carboxylated are not activated and do not execute their role in the bone, cartilage, and soft tissue mineralization. Low vitamin K intake and low serum vitamin K concentrations are associated with increased risk of osteoporosis, cancer, and aortic calcification as observed by several studies [27][28][29].…”

“…It has been reported that osteoporosis is linked with oxidative stress. Moreover, supplementation of vitamin K as an antioxidant vitamin could effectively reduce levels of oxidative stress, with possibly advantageous influence on bone, as displayed in several experimental models [27].…”

“…Vitamin K deficiency is usually limited to people with liver and pancreas disease, cystic fibrosis, digestive disorders, disorders of fat malabsorption, chronic malnutrition, and alcohol dependency or those taking drugs that interfere with vitamin K metabolism such as vitamin K antagonist anticoagulants, bile acid sequestrants, certain types of antibiotics, and anticonvulsants [27].…”

Osteoporosis☆

“…A deficiency of of Gla leads to low bone mineral density and an increase in the risk of fracture (Bü gel, 2003;Beulens et al, 2009;Hamidi and Cheung, 2014). Proteins containing Gla are essential to mineralize the hydroxyapatite crystal matrix of bone with calcium.…”