Oslo, Norway—Vitamin K2 is a rising star in the bone and heart health categories, and new research offers even more insight into why the vitamin supports circulatory health.

Researchers specifically looked at the effect of vitamin K2 (as menaquinone-7 [MK-7 as MenaQ7 from Nattopharma, based here]) on inflammatory markers like tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-1 alpha (IL-1α) and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), elevated levels of which are all associated with endothelial damage, atheroma formation, cardiovascular disease and aging.

When human monocyte-derived macrophages (hMDMs) were pretreated for 30 hours with MK-7, the vitamin inhibited macrophages’ proinflammatory function. The researchers stated, “Pretreatment of hMDMs with 10 μM of MK-7 for 30 h resulted in 20% inhibition of TNF-α production after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activation (P < .05) and 43% inhibition after macrophage-activating lipopeptide (MALP) activation (P < .001).”

These data are published in the Journal of Medicinal Food.

Published in WholeFoods Magazine Online (6/20/16)