I have written and spoken many times about the benefit of vitamin K2 in bone health, and to remove calcium plaques from your heart valves and arteries. The November 2018 issue of Life Extension magazine has many details (click here). A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with calcium plaques in his brain. His wife asked if I knew anything about using vitamin K2 to remove/reduce these calcium plaques.
I am a researcher, not a doctor. I research the human body at the cellular level, looking for cause and effect relationships. If you treat a symptom, you will always treat a symptom. You must treat the cause of a problem to fix it. Doctors ought to treat causes, not symptoms. However, that is not the focus of our medical industry.
I did a few checks on Google about calcium brain plaques, vitamin K2, and reversal/reduction in those plaques. I did not know anything about this particular issue before my quick investigation. I found lots of information going back several years, indicating that vitamin K2 is being used to reduce the calcium-type of brain plaque.
Vitamin K2 is known mostly for its role in blood clotting. It is also known for getting calcium from our bloodstream to our bones. Doctors in Japan now recommend vitamin K2 as a program to reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Vitamin K2 has many other benefits – treating certain kinds of cancers, heart disease, osteoporosis, stroke prevention, and insulin sensitivity.
I supplement with vitamin K2 daily. I prefer to get my nutrients from food, but vitamin K2 is one of the few that I do not get from my food choices. Vitamin D3 and vitamin E (all eight components- 4 tocopherols and four tocotrienols) are the other two.
Most multivitamins do not have vitamin K2. It is found in cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, etc.), eggs, fish, kale, liver, spinach, and organ meats. Vitamin K1 is found in many green vegetables and is converted into vitamin K2 in the body. Generally, the K1 to K2 conversion does not supply all your body’s needs.
After I found that vitamin K2 helped with reducing calcium plaques in the brain, I noticed that vitamin B provides substantial brain health support. Vitamin B is a group of vitamins (biotin, cobalamins, folic acid, niacin, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine, riboflavin, and thiamin).
The Oxford Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences conducted tests on over 150 seniors with mild cognitive impairment. Some were given a vitamin B supplement and other a placebo. The results showed that the group with the vitamin B supplement had less grey matter brain shrinkage over two years compared to the placebo group. This was vital information for scientists to continue their study of Alzheimer’s disease.
Additional research showed that vitamin B3 and B12 played a role in slowing the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Many doctors have given their patients a vitamin B12 shot to determine if a vitamin B12 deficiency is the cause of dementia symptoms. The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency are nearly the same. Typical sources of vitamin B are beans, dairy, eggs, fish, leafy green vegetables, peas, and poultry.
The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that vitamin E could slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. From 2007 through 2012, 600 patients from fourteen VA hospitals were tested for the impact of vitamin E and Alzheimer’s disease progression. Half were given a vitamin E supplement and the other half a placebo. The half taking vitamin E performed better compared to the placebo group in cognitive testing.
Vitamin E is found in almonds, hazelnuts, peanut butter, spinach, Kiwi, mango, tomato, and broccoli. As with many diseases, it is always better to be eating healthy to prevent a disease rather than trying to corrective a disease after you have it.
I provided my research to my friend and recommended that they discuss it with their physician.
Actually The isolation of alpha-tocopherol was is the biggest mistake in nutritional history, it fails as an antioxidant.