New Review Highlights Important Roles of Vitamins K2 & D for Children’s Bone Health
The Journal of the American College of Nutrition has published an important review paper that highlights the impact correcting nutritional insufficiencies, most importantly Vitamin K2 in combination with vitamin D and calcium, leading to a significantly less incidence of low-energy bone fractures in children and young adults.
According to Dr. Vladimir Badmaev, author of the paper and principal and founder of American Medical Holdings, Inc., “The epidemiological evidence indicates a disturbing growth in the number of cases of low-energy fractures in healthy children and adolescents. There are multiple risk factors that may contribute to this growing health concern, and deficient or insufficient nutrition and nutrients, including calcium, vitamin D and vitamin K are among leading considerations.”
Dr. Badmaev led an international research consortium with representatives in the United States and Poland to review the expansive body of research (epidemiological and human clinical) that shows environmental and nutritional factors that contribute to children’s bone health, the mechanisms and biological roles by which nutrients contribute to bone health in children and young adults, and the status of nutrient insufficiency and deficiency of these nutrients.
Badmaev explains that the particular role of vitamin K2, especially menaquinone-7 (MK-7), has been highlighted in the literature recently and distinguished from vitamin K1 in maintaining calcium homeostasis and healthy skeletal system. “The epidemiological and clinical research provides a new nutritional paradigm for efficient and safe delivery of calcium that requires co-supplementation with both fat-soluble vitamins D and K.”
“This review is significant in that it supports the body of evidence already signifying the importance of Vitamin K2 for children’s health,” says Dr. Katarzyna Maresz, president of the International Science and Health Foundation and member of the research team. “This reaseach has not only identified children as a group most deficient in Vitamin K2, but that just 45mcg of K2 daily improves K status and increases the activation of osteocalcin, the K-dependent protein responsible for binding calcium to the bone mineral matrix, therefore improving bone health.”
Badmaev concludes, “The new proposed nutritional regimen may not only prevent low-energy fractures among children and young adults, but will also contribute to building the ‘bone bank’, therefore helping to prevent development of osteoporosis later in life and prevent untoward cardiovascular risk.”