Full Transcript Webinar Introduction and Logistics 0:00 Today's webinar is going to be short and sweet but packed to the hilt with 0:05 everything you ever wanted to know about the different vitamin Ks. But first, 0:10 some quick housekeeping logistics. If at any time you run into technical 0:16 difficulties, there are live chat Zoom staff standing by. We will paste that 0:21 link in the chat. If they're unable to help, we have nutrition facts staff 0:26 standing by too. you can reach out to at research webinar@nutritionfacts.org. 0:33 Please reserve the Q&A button you see in the Zoom window there to ask content 0:38 questions. Today's webinar is only an hour long, but reserve some time for Q&A 0:43 at the end. So, feel free to leave your questions in the Q&A anytime throughout 0:48 the webinar and the nutrition facts team will be compiling compiling them to be 0:53 answered at the end. You don't have to take notes or anything. After the 0:58 webinar is over, we're not only going to send you a full recording of it, but a 1:02 free link to download all the videos in high def so you can see the videos in 1:07 all their full resolution glory. Today's webinar is based on a video we 1:13 created just for this webinar, but should be on nutrition facts in about 1:18 two months time. But you get to see it right here, right now. Entitled, the 1:23 purported benefits of vitamin K2. Should you take K2 supplements?
Vitamin K Basics and Bone Health 1:30 Let's find out. Vitamin K. 1:36 Wait, I know about vitamins A, B, C, D, and E. What happened to vitamins FG, HI, 1:42 and J? It's not alphabetical. Vitamin K stands for coagulation, or at least it 1:50 does in German. That's the fundamental role vitamin K plays helping the blood 1:56 to clot. But over the last few decades, there's evidence that it has other roles 2:00 in the health of our bones, heart, and brain. Kind of reminds me of vitamin D. 2:05 I mean, we know vitamin D is important for bone health, but then there's been 2:09 all sorts of other controversial functions ascribed to it. Some of which 2:13 have been proven and some disproven. What about vitamin K for bone health, 2:19 for example? Is the link between vitamin K and osteoporosis myth or reality? It 2:25 turns out the findings on vitamin K and bone are conflicting and unclear. It 2:29 doesn't help that some of the major trials were found to be problematic to 2:34 say the least, as in likely fraudulent 2:41 containing impossible data with investigators 2:47 admitting to complete fabrication. And so if you do a systematic review 2:53 eliminating any fraud, we find there's no evidence that vitamin K 2:57 supplementation affects bone mineral density or vertebral fractures. 3:02 What about the heart? Vitamin K supplementation for the prevention of 3:06 cardiovascular disease. Uh there's a vitamin K activated protein in your 3:10 blood that binds up excess calcium and helps prevent calcium from being 3:15 deposited into the walls of your arteries and stiffening them. So if you 3:19 give people extra vitamin K, will that protect people's arteries from 3:23 calcification? It sounds good in theory, but no. 3:28 Vitamin K does not appear to consistently prevent progression of 3:31 calcification, atherosclerosis, or arterial stiffness. For example, artery 3:37 calcification is particularly common in patients with chronic kidney disease, 3:41 which can lead to increased artery stiffness, which is an important risk 3:44 factor for heart attacks and strokes. An earlier trial didn't find any benefit on 3:50 coronary artery calcification between the vitamin K and placebo groups, but 3:54 they were using kind of a small dose. So these trials use a whopping dose daily 3:58 for a year and nada. Vitamin K supplementation did not 4:04 improve vascular stiffness or other measures of artery health. And in fact, 4:08 one study on the effect of vitamin K supplementation on artery calcification 4:13 in patients with diabetes found that calcification tended to increase after 4:18 supplementation with a type of vitamin K found in a slimy fermented soy food 4:22 called natto. Now, those with higher levels of vitamin K circulating their 4:27 bloodstreams do tend to have lower levels of inflammation. 4:32 But no wonder where is vitamin K found? The predominant dietary form of vitamin 4:37 K in the human diet comes from dark green leafy vegetables and cruciferous 4:43 vegetables. So, how did people get high levels in their blood? Eating broccoli. 4:48 Those with higher levels of vitamin K in their blood were eating more vegetables, 4:53 less meat. No wonder they had lower levels of inflammation. 4:58 The recommended adequate daily intake for vitamin K is set at 70 micrograms a 5:03 day in Europe and between 90 and 120 a day here in the United States. Just two 5:10 leaves of kale has over 70. And a/4 cup of cooked kale will get anyone all the K 5:17 they need for the day. Now there is vitamin K found in meat, dairy, and eggs 5:22 averaging about 5 to 10 micrograms per serving. In other words, they are even 5:28 beaten out by iceberg lettuce, which is mostly water, but still contains like
Vitamin K and Heart Health 5:34 two to three times more vitamin K. Ah, but that's vitamin K1. What's found in 5:41 animal products is mostly vitamin K2. Do you need K2? Apparently not. Once you 5:49 get enough plant-based K1, there's no established requirement for K2 because 5:54 it hasn't been proven that K2 has effects that are different from K1. They 5:58 both act the same way in the body. Thus, there's not even enough data to take K2 6:04 into account at all. So, when the recommended adequate daily intakes are 6:08 set, they're only talking about getting enough K1 from plants, mostly green 6:13 vegetables. In fact, most of the bone trials that 6:16 flopped used the K2 found in animal products, and most of the failed heart 6:20 studies used K2 as well. Okay. Even though there's presently a lack of 6:26 randomized trial evidence to support a beneficial role for vitamin K and 6:30 preventing the worsening of cardiovascular disease or bone health, 6:34 what if that were to change? What if all of a sudden K2 was shown to have unique 6:40 benefits? Well, guess what? The bacteria in your gut make K2. That's why 6:46 fermented foods have K2. Bacteria make it. And the bacteria in your gut not 6:51 only make it, but it gets absorbed from your colon up into your system, 6:56 contributing a significant amount of the human vitamin K requirement just in case 7:00 you miss a couple days of greens. Vitamin K1 is made by plants and is the 7:06 primary dietary form. Then there are dozen or so types of vitamin K2 which 7:11 are synthesized by bacteria including several types in the human gut. The 7:16 exception though is a type of K2 called manacquinone 4 MK4 which is endogenously 7:23 synthesized in mammals and therefore is found in animal products. Now I don't 7:28 know if any of you noticed but were mammals too. It has consistently been 7:35 shown that vitamin K1 from greens is endogenously converted inside your body 7:40 to the vitamin K2 in animal products. You're made out of meat, too. Though, it 7:46 took until 2010 before we discovered the human biosynthetic enzyme that does it. 7:52 So, no reason at all to take any sort of vitamin K supplement. Eat your greens. 7:59 In fact, when K2 supplements were looked at, researchers found significant 8:03 problems in terms of contaminants and mislabeling. 8:06 Eat your greens. Now, K2 appears in higher concentrations 8:14 in certain tissues, including the brain. Again, we make K2 from the K1 we eat and 8:20 greens, but maybe extra K2 might help. Well, if you measure vitamin K levels in 8:26 the blood and brains of centinarians, those that live over a 100, 8:31 concentrations of circulating K1 from vegetables, but not cerebral K2, not the 8:37 K2 in the brain, was positively correlated with a wide range of 8:41 cognitive measures. Why? Likely because they were eating green vegetables. And 8:47 green vegetables don't just have vitamin K. Green leafy vegetables are the most 8:51 concentrated source of luteine, the eye health nutrient that's taken up into the 8:55 brain and is associated with cognitive performance across the lifespan. And so 9:01 in these centinarians, circulating K1 and luteine concentrations were highly 9:06 correlated. So it's hard to tease out exactly what in greens was so 9:10 beneficial. It's like when you see data showing lower circulating K1 levels in 9:14 the bloodstream are associated with the increased risk of all cause mortality, 9:18 meaning lower K1 levels were correlated with a shorter lifespan. Well, duh. K1 9:25 is found in greens. And of all the dietary components correlated with all 9:29 cause mortality, the best evidence appears to support the intake of green 9:33 leafy vegetables and salads to reduce all cause mortality. In other words, 9:40 eat your greens. 9:44 To summarize, there's no good evidence vitamin K has bone, brain, or heart 9:50 benefits beyond just the clotting function. And even if such evidence 9:56 arose, we can get all the vitamin K we need from vitamin K1 in greens since 10:03 there's no requirement for K2. And even if some evidence arose that 10:09 there was some unique benefit from K2, our microbiome 10:14 makes K2 from the K1 and greens which you then absorb into your system. But 10:20 what about the one type of K2 only made by mammals? 10:26 Uh we mammals. 10:30 So even if we had some problem with our microbiome, our own cells can make K2 10:37 from K1 like the animals we eat do. This all breaks down though unless you get
K1 vs K2, Food Sources, and Gut Production 10:44 enough vitamin K1. So the bottom line is eat your greens. 10:50 All right, Q&A time. Uh we'll just give the nutrition fact staff five minutes to 10:55 compile the most commonly asked questions. Then I'll be right back. 10:59 All right. First, a big thank you to uh the Nutrition Fact staff who uh who uh 11:05 does all the the scrambling particularly today because it was just uh didn't have 11:10 a lot of time uh scrambling to put together a list of questions. Um I 11:16 always appreciate that because then I just have this nice neat list of 11:19 questions. Let's go down it. Um first one on my list is if vitamin K doesn't 11:24 help with osteoporosis, what do you recommend after being diagnosed? 11:27 Fantastic question and you are going to love my new book, How Not to Age has a 11:32 whole chapter uh called preserving your skeleton or preserving your bones. Not 11:36 sure what I'm going to call it yet. Um but I go through, you know, all the 11:41 osteoporosis drugs like Fossamax and stuff, all the things you can do. Um 11:46 and so for the I I was just asked yesterday an interview about it. And so 11:51 I actually pulled up the chapter and like tried to go through it. Um uh and 11:55 it's just a huge amount. Um uh and so uh so that's really the the bottom line is 12:03 that's going to be the most detailed analysis. But um the take-home um 12:08 probably the most important thing you can do use it to lose it is uh is 12:12 weightbearing exercise. Right? Astronauts lose 2% of their skeletal 12:16 mass every month in space because their body's like why am I making a skeleton 12:20 if if you're not going to use it? Um, people don't understand skeleton is not 12:24 like some static thing. It's constantly being remodeled, made, broken down. Um, 12:30 and so it makes just as much as you need. That's why skinny people are at 12:33 high risk for osteoporosis because they're not putting a lot of weight on 12:36 their bones. Um, whereas people who are obese and you know, equivalent of 12:40 carrying around a 100 pounds of extra weight, like 100 pound backpack all day, 12:44 just walking across the room is doing weightbearing exercise. And so they can 12:48 have incredibly strong skeletons. Um but skinny people so people eating healthy 12:55 um are at increased risk of osteoporosis because their body particularly if 13:00 you're sedentary because your body's like well I don't need to make a very 13:03 strong skeleton do I because this person is really light so what do we do 13:06 weightbearing exercise an hour a day seven days a week you can wear like 13:10 these weighted vests to put a little extra weight on in your bones and so so 13:14 what is weight bearing exercise something like walking um as opposed to 13:18 something like swimming where you're really jarring your bones. You're just 13:21 kind of floating around. Not that swimming isn't good for you, but it's 13:24 just uh not uh a weightbearing exercise for your bones. So much more about bones 13:29 coming up. And of course, as with all my books, I turn everything in the book 13:32 into a video. So, if you want to read a book, eventually the videos will come 13:35 out and you can see all those as well. All right, next question. Are there 13:39 studies that shows supplementing with vitamin K2 helps heal broken bones? And 13:44 the answer is no. Um, I wonder do I have anything about I wonder if I have 13:51 anything in chapter about healing broken bones. I don't think I do. I am planning 13:55 on doing some wound healing videos though, but maybe I should do some bone 13:58 healing videos, too. It's a good that's a good question. Uh, I'm sure there's 14:02 got to be some good stuff out there. Um, next question. My level of alkaline 14:06 phosphotase is slightly elevated. Is it possible K2 could help lower it? Um, 14:10 well, as always, treat the cause. Why is your alkaline phosphotase raised? It's 14:14 raised in two scenarios. bone disorders or liver disorders. So you need to get 14:18 your liver function tested. Um so that's just the start of an analysis to find 14:23 out exactly why and then treat the cause. Um and the cause is not uh I 14:29 can't imagine a cause for which K2 would do anything. Um whether it's your bones 14:34 or your liver. Next question. Is there any definitive evidence that Crohn's 14:37 disease of the colon uh interferes with production of vitamin K2 and thereby 14:43 causes aos atherosclerosis over time? Um uh thank you for that question. Even if 14:51 you have a disorder like inflammatory bowel disease that mucks with your your 14:57 microbiome and that interferes with that absorption, excuse me, with that uh 15:03 conversion from K1 to K2, you don't have to worry about it because all the cells 15:07 in your body do it as well. Um uh or all the cells that have been tested so far. 15:12 Uh remember, we're mammals. We actually are our own cell. We don't have to rely 15:16 on our bacteria to make K2 from K1. Not that we need K2 at all, it seems like, 15:22 but um if you wanted to get K2 in your body, no problem. Your body makes it. 15:26 And the fact that your body makes it probably means it does something, right? 15:30 Even though we can't figure out what it is, if your body's making it, it 15:33 probably does something. But you don't have to worry about it because your body 15:36 makes it. Your cells in your body, even if you have a sterile gut, even if you 15:40 took antibiotics, wiped out your gut, you'd still make K2 from K1 because you 15:46 are a mammal. Um, okay. Where am I? Okay. Many vitamin D supplements also 15:52 include vitamin K2 supposedly because there synastic effects. Is vitamin D 15:57 supplementation less effective if it does not include K2? That is marketing 16:01 BS. It's a marketing ploy. um they add K2 because the internet or 16:07 whoever thinks K2 is good for the bones and so oh uh vitamin D is good for the 16:12 bones and so let's put them together and we can sell more of our supplement 16:16 versus somebody else's supplement. Um but that's a good sign that you don't 16:21 have a supplement manufacturer that's evidence-based. The fact that they're 16:26 selling garbage like that. Um, I mean, just because now I mean you could argue, 16:31 look, they're just selling what people want, not necessarily what works. I 16:34 mean, that's capitalism. Um, okay, that's fine. But I'm sure they advertise 16:38 it as like being beneficial, like it says, synergistic effects. Um, but as we 16:43 learned in that short video, um, those the the studies that appeared to show 16:49 beneficial effects from K2 for bone were fraudulent. Fabricate data fabrication 16:55 retracted. And so if you just look at the studies that have not been um shown 17:00 to be fraudulent, you don't see um that the beneficial effects that we used to 17:05 think um were attributed to vitamin K given the data fraud. 17:11 If I make next question, if I make a point to eat natto three times a week, 17:16 will this be enough K2? 100% plant-based. How much natto is too much? 17:20 You don't have to eat natto at all. Right? What does natto have? Vitamin K2. 17:25 But you make vitamin K2. Your gut makes vitamin K2. Um, but only if you eat K1, 17:31 right? It doesn't make K2 out of nowhere, out of from scratch. It makes 17:36 it from K1. So if you don't eat greens, your bacteria can't make K2. Your cells 17:41 in your body can't make K2. Um, again, not that we necessarily need K2, but not 17:47 having enough greens, we might not get enough K1, which is important for blood 17:50 blood coagulation. Uh, so, um, you don't have to eat natto 17:55 at all. Um, I've actually tried it. I was so curious about it and it really is 18:00 snotty and slimy, but it's actually not bad. I don't know. So, if you like it, 18:03 go for it. I It's a whole soy fruit. You can actually see the little soybeans in 18:07 there. I prefer uh tempeh. But yeah, I think I think I only bought it once, 18:13 frankly. But I ate it all. I mean, it's tasty, but yeah, it's a pretty gross
Brain Health, Supplements, and Summary 18:18 texture. Anyway, that's that's you know. Anyway, okay. Next question. Does 18:25 anyone's vitamin K level help with controlling type 2 diabetes? That is not 18:29 something I even remember hearing as a as any kind of theoretical thing. Before 18:35 I say no, let me just uh do a quick um I mean you think when you think vitamin K 18:42 the in terms of purported benefits, it's bone, brain, and uh and heart. Um, but 18:49 let me see. Vitamin K and diabetes. Never even heard of such a thing. But 18:54 let's let's check it out. So, what am I doing? How do I check out stuff? I go to 18:59 the medical database of the National Library of Medicine, PubMed. Um, and Oh, 19:06 okay. I spelled vitamin wrong. That that that'll 19:10 it's basic some basic problems here. Okay. Vitamin K, diabetes. 19:17 Okay. Okay. What do we got? Um 19:25 um Oh, I see. Yeah. So, the only um uh things that are there is for um because 19:32 what's number one killer of diabetics is heart disease, right? It it dramatically 19:36 increases your risk for heart disease. So, they're worried about 19:38 aththeroscllosis, artery calcification, blah blah blah. And so, you test vitamin 19:43 K out in diabetics as a particularly high risk. And so you don't have to have 19:46 as many people in a study. Um so uh and and and but what we learned is that it 19:52 does not indeed seem to help the heart um whether you are diabetic or not. 19:58 Okay. My wife is battling lung cancer. I am so sorry to hear. Um and we think 20:03 she's winning. Oh, okay. That's better. Um a doc recommended vitamin K2 20:08 supplementation. Um we only eat whole plant-based with lots of broccoli. 20:12 Broccoli is good. In fact, cruciferous vegetable was specifically good for lung 20:15 cancer and I think bladder cancer and one other cancer in terms of survival. 20:20 Um, I'm just actually working on cancer survival videos right now. And I 20:25 actually haven't read all the the crucifous vegetables and bladder cancer, 20:28 but there's a bunch of studies out. So, there may be something there. I'll find 20:32 out. Um, but I remember I do have a video talking about lung cancer. Um, 20:36 those with lung cancer living significantly longer who are eating 20:39 cruciferous vegetables. Okay. Anyway, uh, eat lots of broccoli. That's great. 20:43 Um, you said there's no reason really no reason for supplementation. Is there any 20:46 benefit for her to keep taking it? So, I would ask that doctor, um, why why K2 20:53 supplementation? Doesn't make any sense to me from a cancer standpoint, from any 20:58 kind of standpoint. Um, but let's find out. Um, and I mean, my guess is the 21:03 doctor is going to be like not going to be able to give you any answer 21:07 whatsoever. Um, but maybe or Yeah, I don't know. Trying to think. I can't 21:13 even think of a All right. Well, hey, let's, you know, we got we got a second 21:18 here. I'm do I'm doing a PubMed search right now. Okay. All right. Lung cancer, 21:24 vitamin K. Um, 21:29 okay. Let's see. 21:37 Okay. Um, we got prostate cancer. Um, 21:47 pancreatic cancer. 21:56 I'm not seeing anything. 22:02 Um, yeah, I'm not seeing anything. Lung 22:05 cancer. They're talking about anti-coagulants and effects of 22:09 chemotherapy. Um, people can get throbo embolism, 22:14 blood clots. Um, 22:20 blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. All right. Not seeing anything. Um, so ask 22:25 and if that if your doctor comes back and says, um, oh, it was because of this 22:30 study. Send me the study. I'd be happy to look at it. In fact, look, maybe 22:33 there's something there and you know, I could do a video about it. And thanks to 22:37 you asking the doctor, we help other people in your wife's uh situation. All 22:42 right. So, yeah, let me know what they say. Uh but it doesn't make any sense to 22:45 me based on what I saw on vitamin K. Okay. Uh next question. My friend uh 22:51 because of an awful surgical error, cannot eat most vegetables, including 22:57 green and leafy. Um she takes vitamin K. Does she need it? Um, now I'm assuming 23:05 this surgical error created some kind of intestinal stenosis. 23:10 Um, where where you can't eat kind of high-fiber foods because you could get 23:15 stuck, you know, like, you know, um, in which case green smoothies would be 23:21 perfect. This is a perfect scenario for green smoothies, right? You can have all 23:24 the green leafies you want and you never don't have to worry about any kind of 23:28 intestinal blockage with any kind of surgical scarring. So I would prefer 23:32 that to vitamin K unless I'm totally getting it wrong and there's other some 23:36 other reason um uh yeah so yeah let's uh that's a good 23:44 question you know something that I actually didn't mention you know there's 23:47 a warerin or couadin is a blood thinning drug um that is and that works the 23:54 mechanism of its action is it interferes with the effects of vitamin K remember 23:59 vitamin K helps with coagulation And so if you interfere with it, you get 24:04 an anti-coagulant. Um, and so there's lots of circumstances. So for example, 24:08 you have like an artificial heart valve or something. Um, may have to be on 24:12 couadin uh for, you know, for life. And what they tell you is don't eat dark
Q&A: Osteoporosis, Supplements, and Deficiency 24:18 green leafy vegetables. Why? Because all of a sudden you get a bunch of vitamin 24:21 K. You overwhelm the drug and then you then all of a sudden your blood clots 24:24 normally. And that's bad if you want to be have uh thin artificially thin blood. 24:29 Um, now they shouldn't tell you don't eat grains at all. What they should tell 24:32 you is to eat a stable amount of grains and then they just titrate the level of 24:35 couadin up to to your grains consumption. Um, so you still want to 24:39 eat a lot of grains. Um, but you want to eat the same amount of grains from day 24:42 to day. Um, so then they can keep the the level of couadin and they can 24:46 measure the effects of that with something called INR. So they can they 24:50 can they can just match it. But so they're assuming that no one eats any 24:54 greens. So they just say keep not eating green. Don't eat greens. Meaning keep 24:58 not eating greens. But of course, if you're smart and you're eating lots of 25:01 greens, the advice should be keep eating lots of greens and we'll just, you know, 25:04 give you lots of the drug. Okay. Anyway, um, next question. Does cooking affect 25:11 vitamin K2 content in greens? Now, uh, greens don't have K2, they have K1, but 25:16 of course, your body turns the K1 into K2. So does your bacteria and your 25:20 microbiome. But so changing that question to does cooking affect K1 25:24 content in greens? And I am going to say no. 25:29 It's not something I ran across. And when they do these studies, they're 25:34 typically giving people cooked greens, but I wonder if there's any kind of 25:37 decimate uh cooking. Let's see. Vitamin K cooking effects. Um 25:47 um Oh. Oh, interesting. Um so actually 25:51 cooking improves vitamin K bio accessibility because it kind of you 25:55 know it um it uh it swells and breaks open the cell walls. Um and so actually 26:02 improve so cooking greens actually appears to improve vitamin K uh um 26:09 bioavailability. Okay, here's one. Let me just look at 26:14 this study right here. Um vitamin 26:22 MK. 26:26 Oh. Um. All right. So, uh, All right. Let me just actually look 26:31 at this really quick. Um, they're talking about microwaving. 26:37 See if I have a So here we go. Microwave. 26:42 Okay. Microwave broccoli, for example. Vitamin E. We don't want vitamin E. You 26:47 want vitamin K? All right. 26:52 Where'd you go? Vitamin E. Huh? Not there. All right. Um, so I'm going to 26:58 say uh no, but if I find anything different, I will let folks know over 27:04 social media. Um, because I hate getting stuff wrong. 27:09 Uh, but it does not look like it's a significant difference. So, you should 27:12 eat greens in whichever way will get you to eat the most of them. 27:18 Okay. Okay. Precision vitamin A broccoli 27:25 K. 27:29 Vitamin K. Oh, there we go. Vitamin K. R. Oh, yeah. Okay. There we go. So, raw 27:35 broccoli um the retention of vitamin K um was uh 1.54 milligrams per kilogram. 27:42 And whether you steam it, blanch it or boil it or microwave it actually goes 27:47 up. Um uh so uh uh so that's good. So improves the 27:56 bioability. Other um uh there's other you know vitamins like uh betaarotin for 28:01 example um is you get more beta in your blood supply eating cooked carrots and 28:06 raw carrots, more lycopine from cooked tomato products like tomato paste 28:09 compared to raw tomatoes. So, it looks like vitamin K is a very similar thing, 28:12 but you can get remember how I said a single leaf of kale uh was like what? 28:18 Half of your half your dose uh something like that or 28:23 um and a quarter cup was like more than you need in a whole day. Quarter cup of 28:27 cooked greens. Um and so it's such a small amount of greens that you need. 28:32 Even if there was even if there was, you know, more bioaccessibility in in cooked 28:37 greens, it does not take many raw grains to to get there either. Remember how 28:41 iceberg lettuce had a whole bunch? So, um um eat greens whichever way will get 28:47 you most of them. And remember, my daily dozen recommendation is for at least a 28:51 serving of greens a day and a serving of cruciferous vegetables which tends to be 28:54 green leafy and as well. Okay, where are we? Um okay. Uh doc, what is your 29:00 favorite green? Arugula question mark. Arugula is my favorite raw green. Oh, 29:05 actually, no. I would say pclain. Pcelain is totally yummy. It's this 29:10 crazy weed that grows out of the cracks in the sidewalk. Um, but you can 29:14 actually cook it. I mean, you can actually grow it. Um, and it's really 29:19 cool. It's tasty. It's got a little tart bite to it. Delicious. Um, but you can't 29:24 buy it. Um, well, I was going to say you can't buy commercially. I think I found 29:28 it at like a farmers market once, but anyway. Uh and uh and then favorite 29:34 cooked greens probably losenado kale, that dinosaur kale, that really dark, 29:38 you know, kind of almost black kale. Um although I just tried for the first time 29:43 sweet potato greens. Why? Because grew a lot of sweet potatoes. And guess what? 29:47 Sweet potatoes didn't make any sweet potatoes. Just made a lot of greens. It 29:50 like put all its energy into greens and didn't make me any sweet potatoes. But 29:55 that's okay. I ate a whole bunch of I ate big bags of sweet potato greens. So 29:59 that was cool. and they were tasty, but favorite is probably still less kale. 30:03 Okay. Oh, um Oh, the question is what about K3 through K7? Those are different 30:10 types of K2. Um so there's like 14 different types of uh something on the 30:16 order of 14 different types of K2. Um and so that's what we're talking about. 30:21 And so everything other than K1 is considered K2. Okay. Hey, is there any 30:26 sort of feedback loop mechanism which controls the conversion of vitamin K1 to 30:30 K2 based on vitamin K2 supplementation? Oh, interesting. Um, so this person is 30:34 thinking, well, if you actually take vitamin K2 pills, which I don't 30:37 recommend, and you know, I even noted that even if you wanted for some reason 30:43 to take them, you know, when they actually take them off the shelves, 30:46 there's all sorts of problems in terms of contamination and not having what it 30:49 actually says it has. But anyway, if you were actually taking actual somehow 30:53 actual K2, would your body downregulate the conversion from K1 to K2? Good 30:58 question. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. Um, yeah, I yeah, wouldn't be 31:04 surprised, but I yeah, I do not know that. Um, uh, I had read that oh, that 31:10 Japanese study using K2 for osteoporosis. Perhaps this was a faulty 31:13 study. How can a regular person know what studies are faulty? Um, well, uh, 31:18 you know, there's a great website. um called retractionwatch. I wonder if 31:22 it's.org. Is it? Let's look. Re retractionwatch.org 31:32 or is it going to be.com? No, it's wonderful. Okay. And what it does is it 31:37 tracks retractions of scientific papers. Um, and so I mean if you're interested 31:43 in all these crazy fraud stories and um that's that's one of the what's nice 31:51 about that website is it is it gives you kind of the backstory. So like on PubMed 31:56 you'll go look up a study. Um so like for example if you go to the look up the 32:01 Japanese study that you saw before and you look at it now it may very well say 32:05 it was retracted. Um, and so before when you saw the study instead it says a big 32:10 retraction notice, but it usually doesn't give you any information. It 32:14 just says this is retract and you're like, "Huh?" Um, and then but you go to 32:18 retra. So you go to retraction watch, you're like, "Oh, what's the dish on 32:21 this?" Um, and uh, and you you find out, you know, was it, you know, what kind of 32:27 crazy hy jinks were they up to? Um, and you know, does the author Sometimes the 32:32 author agrees, sometimes the author self- retracts, said, "Oh, I totally 32:36 screwed up the the the statistics or whatever. I'm so sorry. I take it back." 32:41 Um, in which case it's kind of uncontroversial. Like even the author of 32:44 the study themselves says, "We don't like the study." Other times, um, the 32:48 scientists actually, uh, you know, it's pulled by the journal, but the 32:52 scientists, uh, disagree and say, "No, it should not have been retracted." In 32:57 fact, there's a really fascinating case um that I uh that I want to do a video 33:04 about. I don't know if I I I well I it's a little risky legally um but I'm I'm 33:11 going to do it anyway. Um the uh so Herbal Life, you know, there's this big 33:16 gazillion dollar multi-level marketing company, you know, Herbal Life. They 33:21 make lots of supplements all over the world. Um, so there was a a really 33:26 serious case report of a fatal liver toxicity. There have been a lot of 33:29 studies, um, lot of case reports of people having liver toxicity, but this 33:33 may have been actually the first fatal case. Um, and so just to let everyone 33:37 know, like don't take Herbal Life supplements, you know, you Anyway, um, 33:43 and uh, so the Herbal Life uh, company, which is uh, has this infamous history 33:49 of suing everybody in sight who says anything bad about them. um uh 33:54 strongarmed the publisher to retract the paper. Why was there anything wrong with 34:00 the paper? No, they retracted it for legal reasons. Meaning the the they got 34:05 so much pressure from this corporation which had lots of lawyers um that 34:11 threatened to like sue the the publisher out of existence that they retracted the 34:16 paper. That's the first time I've ever seen anything like that. And of course 34:19 the authors are like this is outrageous. like we're trying to help people and oh 34:22 this is crazy. They even took the paper down. Like you can't even find it. It 34:26 doesn't even it's not there with a little retraction. Like they they tried 34:29 to expune it from the planet but I actually found a copy so I could show 34:33 people. Um yeah. Oh, it's just totally slimy. But of course then they make them 34:38 after us. Anyway, but all sorts of juicy stuff. Where did I learn about that? 34:44 Retraction watch. So it's a great website. Anyway. Okay. That was a little 34:47 off on tangent there. Okay. Uh 34:54 oh. Okay. Does next question. Does vitamin K help with the absorption of 35:00 calcium? Is there any case in which you would take calcium supplements for bone 35:03 health? Oh, okay. Um uh no. Vitamin K and calcium are kind uh 35:10 separate things. We used to think there was some kind of calcification thing 35:13 theoretically, but that didn't turn out. That didn't pan out. Um, and are there 35:18 any um cases you take calcium supplements for bone health? No. Um, and 35:22 I have a video. Are calcium supplements safe? Um, and appears they're not safe. 35:26 Actually cause a hypercoagulable state, thickens your blood when you get a big 35:30 spike in calcium when you when you take this unphysiologically normal um, you 35:35 know, concentrated source of calcium. We should get calcium from our diet. And 35:39 what's the best way? What's the best source? The healthy source? Dark green 35:43 leafy vegetables with the exception of three. spinach, um, beet greens, and 35:47 Swiss chard. Fantastic grains, but stingy with their calcium. Um, and so 35:52 you want to get all the other ones like, oh, bok choy and kale and collards and 35:55 go crazy. Okay, what's next? Um, what about Oh, what about vitamin K 36:03 from apple skin compared with leafy greens? I didn't know there was vitamin 36:09 K and apple skin. Um, let's find let's let's find out. Is is 36:14 this person just trolling me here? Vam. I mean, there's lots of wonderful stuff 36:19 in apple skin. Remember I did a video about how apple peel help with like 36:24 powdered apple peel, just straight peel helped with uh some kind of inflammatory
Q&A: Greens, Blood Thinners, and Special Cases 36:30 arthritis. I forget, but it just shows don't peel your apples. Vitamin K. Apple 36:36 peel. What do we K? 36:42 Ah, Apple Beetles got vitamin K. Um, all right. Yeah, there it is. That's 36:48 cool. Okay. Um, how I'm trying to just see if it tells me really quick how much 36:56 um uh and then we can compare it to the greens. 37:00 Ah, 37:05 large red apple. All right. All right, let's let's see if 37:10 we can see if we can find out really quick. Um, remember Cus, we're we're 37:14 looking for about 100 or so micrograms for the day for vitamin K. Um, see if it 37:22 gives a vitamin K. 37:25 Oh, you know what? We should look. I don't know what I'm doing. Um, so, uh, 37:29 what if you want to find the nutrition information for anything? What you do is 37:34 you go to the USDA nutrient database. So, let's do that right now. Um, and 37:39 I'll give you the URL. Um, in fact, let me uh paste it into the chat. Um, oh, I 37:48 should have been doing that. Every time I say URL, like uh, you know, I should 37:52 paste it into the chat. But let me do that right now. 38:00 Okay. Where is the chat? Chat chat. Chat. 38:04 uh chat. Okay, here is the USDA nutrient 38:10 database. In fact, uh researchers from all over the world come here. This is 38:13 your tax taxpayer dollars hard at work in a really good way. So, they've looked 38:18 at God there must be 100,000 or more foods like everything like you know 38:24 breakfast cereals, real food, whole food. Okay. Um so, and it and it gives 38:30 all the types of apples. Let's just I'm going to click on Fuji just to see what 38:34 we see. And um Oh, I'm not seeing any vitamin K. Um 38:43 let me see. 38:48 Apple. It's possible they just didn't um uh 38:54 uh didn't uh measure it in that case. Let me go. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. 39:01 So, uh I 39:05 Oh, that's without SK. Okay. Without skin. All right. Without skin, um an 39:11 apple has less than one microgram. You'd have to eat a 100 apples, 100 peeled 39:17 apples a day to get um enough vitamin K. So, but 39:23 let's see. Um Whiskin. Oh my god. The pro the problem is there it's the 39:29 website's too good. Um and so there's like a thousand, 39:34 you know, there's a thousand things for apples and so all right, here we go. I 39:38 found one with skin um vitamin K. 39:44 Ah, two. All right. So, you get less than one in a uh Okay. Well, that's 39:51 that's kind of disappointing. Um Well, okay. But that's per 100 grams. I don't 39:56 know. A large apple could have like 200 gram. So, we're talking about four four 40:01 micrograms. So, one leaf of kale would had like 35 or something and an apple 40:09 has like four. So, you know, so a/4 cup of cooked greens or 40:16 25 apples or tw Yeah. So, yes, there is vitamin K, but eat your greens. Okay. 40:27 Okay. But that's Hey, something I didn't know. Okay. Any questions on K2 needs 40:32 during pregnancy or shot? Oh, shots for newborns. Yeah. Some of vegan moms. Any 40:37 instances where supplement supplementation can be recommended in 40:40 those cases? Ah, that's actually a really good um 40:45 um all kids get a vitamin K um all infants get vitamin K um shot um 40:54 at birth K infant see I wonder if there's just a 41:00 um just be you we we're born with very little stores and of course you get in 41:05 breast milk but before you get in breast milk they want to get your your your 41:09 your your your levels up. Um and so uh that's why uh 41:17 the current recommendation um is that all kids get a vitamin K shot at birth. 41:26 Um 41:31 is there anything else? Oh, that's interesting. Some European countries, I 41:35 didn't know this, uh, let families use an oral form of vitamin K instead. 41:40 Um, but oral vitamin K is not available for newborns in the United States. Oh, 41:45 that's interesting. Okay. Um, so, um, so you're thinking, oh, the poor little kid 41:52 getting a shot that that right when they're born. um but they just need that 41:56 one shot of vitamin K and that'll get them uh enough to then maintain their 42:03 levels um with breast milk. So uh uh all right so yeah so um the 42:11 recommendation is indeed vitamin K shot upon birth um because you don't want a 42:16 rare bleeding disorder. Um okay um that's a good question though. All 42:22 right, where are we? Oh, should you still eat lots of greens if you're 42:25 taking blood thinners? No. If you're Well, there's different kinds of blood 42:27 thinners, but if you're on a vitamin K blocking blood thinners, the answer is 42:31 yes, as long as it's a stable level and they give you enough couadin um to to 42:37 counter your grains intake. Uh so yeah, so that's critically important. You 42:41 can't just be not eat grains, not eat grains, and then eat a lot of grains 42:45 without increasing your dose. Um and your doctor can do that by testing your 42:50 INR to make sure that you're getting enough. Um, is there sufficient harm 42:54 from Is there sufficient harm with taking K2 or is it just a waste of 42:58 money? Um, well, uh, remember when you take K2, you're not taking K2, right? I 43:03 I to showed that study with the they took supplements off the shelf, there 43:07 all sorts of contaminants. You're not they weren't actually buying what you're 43:10 getting. Um and so if you so supplementation so supplement market is 43:16 so poor that some of these supplements um are uh are infamous for just um being 43:24 very difficult. You know this reason I don't um recommend melatonin 43:28 supplements. Not because I don't think melatonin may be useful in terms of like 43:32 helping with jet lag and stuff, but it's because all the contaminants that have 43:35 been found. Um because it's just there's no there's no downside for a company. 43:41 Why would you test for contaminants? Because everyone else isn't testing and 43:45 then you'd have to raise your prices and you get pushed out of business. So 43:48 there's no regulation to level the playing field saying everybody must not 43:52 have harmful contaminants. Uh anyway, and why? Because of the 43:57 lobbying from the submit industry. Um, and when I say supplement industry, 44:00 that's pretty much the drug industry. I mean, there's this kind of dichotomy 44:04 where there's like the good supplement industry and then the bad big pharma. 44:07 Guess who owns most of the supplement industry? Big pharma. All right. Um, 44:12 they own Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Um, and so you shouldn't be surprised that they're 44:17 using their political will to to do bad things. Okay. Oh, so uh, is there harm 44:24 taking K2 just a waste of money? If you could actually get actual K2 without 44:28 contaminants or anything, then it would just be a waste of money. Um, but uh but 44:34 because this we got bad supplement market, it might be even worse than 44:38 that. But that's the best it would be is a waste of money at least based on the 44:42 current science. Okay. Are there any specific symptoms that would indicate a 44:46 point to someone having a vitamin K deficiency? Yeah. So um um uh bleeding 44:53 disorders um uh uh so yeah so um if your if your blood isn't qu um coagulating 45:03 the way it should clot the way it should all sorts of things u vitamin K is just 45:07 one factor there platelets and all sorts of other things that go into making your 45:11 blood clot I mean the reason it's such a a a an incredibly [snorts] complex 45:16 process is because your body is just living a knife edge all the time, right? 45:20 It has to instantly clot off, you know, the cyber tooth chunk that just got 45:25 taken out of your leg, right? Otherwise, you bleed to death. So, it has to at any 45:29 moment like clot off like crazy. At the same time, if you're not being bleeding 45:34 or being bitten, you have to be super super liquid. Otherwise, you clot up 45:39 your brain, your heart, and die in an instant, right? That's what causes most 45:42 about 90% of strokes causes heart attacks is clotting where there 45:46 shouldn't be clotting. So, it's amazing. Same thing with the immune system, 45:49 right? The reason why people can take eat a peanut and then literally in a few 45:55 minutes die is because your immune system is right on the edge of 46:00 catastrophic overreaction at all times. Why? Because we evolved in the context 46:05 of being killed left and right from, you know, from bact microorganisms. 46:12 Um, and so we have to deal this really fine dance of not overreacting but not 46:17 underreacting. It's amazing that any of us are alive. It's very cool. Anyway, 46:21 okay, that was a little uh that was a little tangent. Okay. Are there any 46:26 specific symptoms? Okay. Um, how efficiently is K1 convert to K2? How
Closing Remarks and Upcoming Webinar 46:31 about folks with disbiotic gut syndrome like take bad antibiotics? Yeah. Okay. 46:37 So, so that that was a point I made um that even that so this person is worried 46:42 well wait a second what if I have dispiosis what if I don't have good gut 46:46 flora what if I just took antibiotics wiped out um my good gut floor and so 46:50 then where where am I going I get my K2 well we learned in 2010 we used to just 46:55 think it was your bacteria making uh K2 for you but now in 2010 we realized ah 47:00 our cells have an enzyme that make K2 so even if you had zero if you were you 47:04 know had a bubble boy scenario where you had zero germs in or outside of you, um 47:11 you'd still make K2, um your cells would make it. Um and that's the reason why a 47:16 steak has K2 in it is because the cow made K2 from the grass that it ate um 47:22 that had K1 in it. Um even if the even if the cow didn't have any bacteria, 47:28 they'd still make it. Okay. Why? Oh, here we go. Oh, why are all w all my 47:34 women friends in early 60s getting diagnosed with osteopenia or osteerosis? 47:38 Is that model wrong to compare our bone ah bone density that of a 28-year-old 47:42 woman of childbearing age or being overdiagnosed? Oh my god, IT'S A 47:46 FANTASTIC QUESTION. That's uh that's that's you know that's how I start my 47:51 chapter on osteoporosis. So when you're uh you know you get that zcore, you get 47:56 the score saying, "Whoa, you are a standard deviation lower um than you 48:01 than you should be on your bone mineral density. Quick, we got to put you on 48:04 drugs. We got to do all this other stuff." That's not compared to people 48:09 your own age. That's compared to a young person. So I mean, you normally it's 48:14 normal for men and women to um lose bone mass with age. And so it's not saying 48:20 you're abnormal for your age group. You're saying it's you're abnormal 48:24 compared to a young person. You say, "Well, okay. So it's important to 48:29 understand, but still, don't you I mean, you have weaker bones than you did when 48:34 you were younger, and so don't we want to do something about that?" Well, the 48:39 critical thing, the the critical factor, the reason we care about obviously bone 48:44 meal density is because we want to prevent fractures. Something like hip 48:46 fracture can be fatal. all sorts of terrible things happen. Okay, but the 48:50 primary determinant of whether or not you break your hip um or suffer these 48:55 bone fractures is actually not the density of your bones, the strength of 48:58 your bones. It's fall risk. You could have the weakest bones on the planet, 49:02 super super weak bones and never have and and and never break your hip because 49:07 you don't fall. Or you could have really strong bones and fall, break your hip. 49:11 Um, and so a lot of the chapter I talk about fall risk, like getting rid of uh 49:16 like throw rugs and things, things that can make you slip and then fall and hurt 49:20 yourself regardless of your bones. So yeah, fantastic question. Um, yeah. Um 49:27 uh and then I talk about the pros and cons of actually uh treating um uh uh 49:34 low bone density and it's you know it's complicated and ah fascinating super 49:40 fascinating and like in fact like one of the uh side effects it's it's rare but 49:46 one of the side effects of like these drugs like phosmax these bifphosphinates 49:50 is bone fracture something called atypical a femur fracture where the 49:54 largest bone in your body just basically snaps like without anything like without 49:59 break like without falling or anything just snaps in half the biggest bone. So 50:03 I the irony of that the bone building drug that the one of the rare side 50:09 effects is that you suffer this absolutely horrible devastating side 50:13 effect of bone breakage without doing anything. That's crazy. Anyway, but 50:18 there are benefits too and check out the chapter. It's very cool. Um, in fact, I, 50:23 you know, I'll probably do a web Yeah, I'll do a webinar on it. Yes. Yeah. Uh, 50:27 it's it's it's all sorts of good juicy juicy stuff. So, you don't have to wait 50:30 for the book. Okay. Um Um, uh, do I think there's anything? Oh, okay. It 50:38 looks like we are Oh, we're done with the K questions. Um, it looks like And 50:43 then there's all sorts of good non-K questions. Uh, we're almost out of time, 50:47 but maybe we can get to a few. Um uh do you think there's anything uh uh oh 50:52 concrete that'll come from the White House conference on on nutrition and 50:54 health? Oh yeah, there was really I mean the most exciting thing um was the 51:00 announcement of this greener by default um initiative in New York City. New York 51:06 City hospitals, the meals are plant-based by default. Meaning, I mean, 51:13 you can still order meat, like go out of your way, but if you don't say anything, 51:17 they will bring you plant-based meals. Like, wait a second, in a hospital, 51:20 healthy food. Mind blown, right? Mind blown, right? In the what? Probably, 51:25 right? It's the largest city in the country, right? One of the largest city 51:28 in the world. And there are hospitals, plant-based options by default. Why 51:32 isn't that in every single hospital in the country? 51:35 Right. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't be by default. It should be 51:39 pipe. It's like it's not like you can ask for cigarettes and the default is no 51:44 cigarettes. No, no cigarettes in a hospital. We don't want to. That's a bad 51:47 role modeling. But anyway, at least it's better than what is now. So, that was 51:51 super amazing that that was that was announced by this was Eric um the work 51:55 of Eric Adams, the plant-based mayor of New York City. Anyway, oh, let us end on 52:01 that super cool optimistic note. Thank you so much for joining. Make sure you 52:09 go to nutritionfacts.org/subscribe for announcements of upcoming webinars. 52:14 We have six webinars scheduled for 2026, one every month. The next one is on 52:21 preventing and treating foot pain. gonna be covering plantar fasciitis and other 52:28 other causes of heel pain, uh, ankles, sprains, bunions, ingrown toenails, you 52:33 name it, for July 24th, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time featuring, 52:41 brand new material for my upcoming book, How Not to Hurt: On Diet and Lifestyle 52:48 Approaches to Pain Management. I hope to see you there. 52:55 And of course, all proceeds I receive from all my books are donated directly 53:00 to charity.
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