A research by Australia’s Edith Cowan University has found that people who eat a diet rich in vitamin K have up to a 34 per cent lower risk of atherosclerosis-related cardiovascular disease.
According to the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers examined data on the effect of vitamin K taken from more than 50,000 respondents study over more than 20 years.
There are two types of vitamin K found in foods we eat: vitamin K1 comes primarily from green leafy vegetables and vegetable oils while vitamin K2 is found in meat, eggs and fermented foods.
The study found that people with the highest intakes of vitamin K1 were 21 percent less likely to be hospitalized with cardiovascular disease related to atherosclerosis. For vitamin K2, the risk of being hospitalized was 14 percent lower.
This lower risk was seen for all types of heart disease related to atherosclerosis, particularly for peripheral artery disease at 34 percent.
It is affirmed by researchers that current dietary guidelines for the consumption of vitamin K are generally only based on the amount of vitamin K1 a person should consume to ensure that their blood can coagulate.
However, there is growing evidence that intakes of vitamin K above the current guidelines can afford further protection against the development of other diseases, such as atherosclerosis. The next phase of the research will involve developing and improving databases on the vitamin K2 content of foods.
