I’ve heard that taking K2 MK7 is good for your bones, but am not sure if it’s safe to take with Xarelto. Apparently it cannot be taken if prescribed to Warfarin but it’s unclear as to whether or not it’s safe with other anticoagulants. Can anyone clarify this for me?
Taking K2 MK7: I’ve heard that taking K... - Atrial Fibrillati...
Taking K2 MK7
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SnoopyJ
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My understanding is that there is no reason why K2 with MK7 cannot be taken as there is no direct interaction but you must check with Pharmacist as there are many drugs that will prevent absorption so bioavailability of supplements is compromised therefore a waste of money.
I use an oral D3/K2 oral spray which hasn’t so far caused a problem and on recommendation from my bones guy a Bone supplement which contains VitD, K2, Boron etc.
I really wouldn’t take anything by heresay - always check with specialist.
Thanks for responding and will check with my pharmacist. I’ve also read that it’s important to take D3 along with the K2. I’m just trying to find any good alternative to taking recommended meds for osteoporosis.
I’ve also got osteoporosis and learned a lot from the ROC forum here on HU. Worth looking at. I use the Marodyne LIV along with supplements and recommended diet sheet from Dr Nick Birch with whom I had a REMS scan with last September. It was interesting as his analysis was very different from the DXA NHS result - my scores were much better. If you can, worth a consultation, I posted results on the ROS forum last September and had really good feedback, maybe check it out?
I truly doubt that there's any worthwhile evidence that these tablets are better than a healthy diet, exercise and an optimum weight, you know, but they are said to be safe with the newer ("DOAC") anticoagulants. It is only warfarin that has incompatibilities with some foods and supplements.
Steve
For those of us on steroids for other conditions we are prescribed calcium and vitamin D to deal with the potential side effects of prednisolone. The PMR/GCA forum recommends adding K2 because along with vitamin D3 it helps calcium get absorbed into the bones. There is a danger with calcium supplements that calcium can be deposited in the joints as crystals causing terrible pain. Or even worse, it can calcify the blood vessels leading to PAD, heart attacks or stroke.
Hi - yes, a friend is taking them for just this reason. I was speaking only generally (i.e. as a general supplement) but I am sorry if it appeared to be other. It must be worrying to have to be on steroids long term. Since covid, I believe a lot more people are in that position as it seems to have sparked off a number of auto-immune conditions. One friend has developed polymyalgia and another vasculitis likely caused or "woken up" by covid.
Steve
Hi, I have been lucky never to have had covid, but I developed PMR and GCA about 2 weeks after my first two covid jabs. You are right, a lot of people on the forum developed it or other autoimmune conditions as a result of covid or the vaccine. In fact there is a band of people willing to take the issue to court. See "UK CV family" website.
It has to be said that the friend with vasculitis already had long covid prior to this but the booster vaccine seemed to provoke the vasculitis within two weeks of her receiving it. It’s worrying.
The numbers on that website do seem high and it is an unfolding tragedy for some, but in important senses, they are “pooled” and concentrated by the effects of the internet so, in reality, and compared with the overall numbers who have received the vaccine, I hope it’s true that they are still relatively tiny and in line with the side effects from other vaccines. It’s also that so many people were given the Covid vaccine compared with others, even the flu vaccine.
Also, many people have had Covid without being aware of it, or so it seems, further complicating the picture. And it has to be said that, autoimmunity and inflammatory illnesses are a feature of older age, as I have found myself.
All that said, the virus, and perhaps the vaccine, will yet prove to be far more troublesome than many imagine.
It’s a fascinating area of study for scientists and, although unlike my brother, I refuse to subscribe to any conspiracy views, more might yet come out of the woodwork than we currently know.
Steve
I agree entirely with what you say. Auto immune diseases are thought to be the result of a culmination of accumulating issues. Covid being the last straw in many cases, but not the sole contributor. There are many contributing factors thought to play a part, mainly related to our modern lifestyles.
Yes, the more I read, the more it seems that there’s so much more yet to be found out about these inflammatory diseases. Perhaps the grants for research aren’t sufficient or it is simply too difficult to research diseases that are so long in the making?
It seems true that the Covid virus is able to be virulent only in cases where there is an excess of an enzyme called ACE2 on the surface of certain cells. This seems to be the case in many people over, say, 70, more generally, or in those with pre-existing auto-immune / inflammatory conditions as evidenced by their having diabetes, hypertension and so on.
I find it all fascinating. Let’s hope it stays as a background issue with the majority of people coping entirely well with it.
Steve
Many post menopausal women are advised by their doctors to take calcium supplements (often quite large amounts in the past when they were advised against cheese because too high in fat )to stave off osteoporosis and vit D to increase the calcium absorption from the gut. Indeed most calcium supplements that you buy OTC have vit D in them. What they were not advised to do for a long time was to take vit K2 to ensure that this calcium did go into their bones and it was noticed that women who were taking this preventative calcium were getting more heart disease - because the calcium was ending up in their arteries. You talk about "a healthy diet" . Well what is considered a healthy diet is continually changing to the confusion of the general public. For years we had our ears bent with the dangers of animal and dairy fat - hence the calcium supplement advice. A considerable part of the adult population lose their lactose tolerance in their twenties - so drinking milk makes them feel sick though they can still eat milk products such as butter, cheese and yoghurt. I am one of them. Because the amount of cheese and yoghurt I consume each day has nowhere near the calcium content recommended for older women I did as advised and took calcium supplements. One side effect of this was severe breast pain as breast tissue is one of the places misguided calcium can get into. Which set me off on having mammograms earlier than is usual (having being diagnosed with an early menopause and then having a complete hysterectomy my osteoporosis risk was deemed higher so I started taking the calcium supplements in my forties). So you see it is not so simple as "a healthy diet, exercise and optimal" weight even though those things are of paramount importance. Especially for women whose different physiology often needs more nuanced approaches. One of the ironies in the nutritional saga round dairy fats is that high fat aged cheeses are one of the good food sources of vit K2 so in advising limiting this and making up shortfalls in calcium with supplements without adding in K2 women were being abyssmally advised by nutritionists and doctors alike.
I would say that it's never "simple" only when specifics are introduced into an argument as if they were generalities. I would still argue that for the vast majority of people, a good diet, right from early childhood (and now, more and more it seems from recent research on ADHD and autism, one that includes starting life on breast milk wherever possible), a healthy amount of body fat and daily exercise are likely to reap long-term health rewards.
Regarding what a "good" diet consists of, I agree with you, but, in general terms, a mixed diet, heavy in fibrous cellular nutrients that need the digestive system to break them down, has for a very long time been recommended, I would say. This would mean a diet in which a mix of lightly processed or raw ingredients dominate, such as vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, dairy and so on rather than a reliance on over-processed foods where the initial "digestion" has been, essentially and in a factory, done for us.
As for the vogues that some nutritionists seem easily to fall prey too, well, it's not a speciality or a "science" that I have ever thought too highly of. I might be wrong as it's a bias I have and I am sure that there are many excellent and wise nutritionists. Perhaps the media is to blame, rather than th nutritionists themselves?
Has vitamin K2 with D now been shown in the long-term to prevent the laying down of calcium in the arteries? I haven't kept up with this research at all. My understanding was that the calcium question was far from being understood, still. Any research links would be gratefully received.
I am not sure, by the way, as I don't know the figures, but is it fair to say that "a considerable part of the adult population" are lactose intolerant? I'd have thought a small minority, myself.
Steve
This article is excellent, though may take some time to read. It is scholarly and scientific. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Thanks for that. It’s fascinating to read research like that but it also seems that whatever the metabolic role of the k vitamins, much as with vitamin D, the value of oral supplementation of these vitamins is far from easy to evaluate and produces conflicting results.
It seems possible to me that individual variation and genetics plays a large role in what is being observed in some of these studies, rather than, say, deficiency from the diet.
I can understand the rationale for vitamin D deficiency in sunless climes, but vitamin k “deficiency” seems far less clearly established. And, with both, the effects of oral supplementation are - rather surprisingly - difficult to establish.
The effects on post-menopausal women seem clearer and perhaps a combined D and K supplement would be worthwhile? Looking closer at some of the studies, however, reveals even that not to be as clear as might be expected. Once again, individual variation and genetics must be confounding factors.
Still - it’s all fascinating. Thanks for passing on the link.
Steve
It definitely is an interesting article….although a bit over my head in certain areas. From what I took away from reading this is that taking K-2 is very healthy, providing some protection from not only osteoporosis but many other very serious afflictions. Thank you for sharing,
There is some research that shows that vit K will actually reverse artery calcification but I can't remember where I read about it. It is not a true lactose intolerance (for all dairy) but more a difficulty with being able to drink fresh milk when adult. This is due to declining lactase production with age and fresh milk contains more lactose than other dairy products. Apparently this affects 65% of the world population with large regional differences and in areas of the world where this is more common it is got round by making dairy products that contain less lactose than fresh milk. I don't know what proportion of Europeans this affects only that it effects them the least. But I do know that in my early twenties drinking milk which I had always loved made me feel extremely nauseous. I even had to stop having it in coffee. I thought I was just odd till I read about adult lactase decline.
I think you are being too sanguine about people actually knowing what a good diet consists of! From the mid seventies onwards we were assured that a good diet was one that was low in fat particularly animal and dairy fat. This led to a rise in products stuffed full of sugar to make them taste better and all sorts of chemical rubbish to replace the texture fat gives. Told to only eat 3 eggs or less a week because they were full of cholesterol but funnily nobody seemed to warn in the same way against prawns! Today it is the plant based diet craze much touted on this site. So far the only good diet advice that I see is that against eating UPF food which has been far too long coming. Even the recommendations to eat a Mediterranan diet present this as not really consistent with what people living round the Med actually used to eat. For some reason dairy gets missed out despite the fact that sheep and goat's milk cheese were traditionally eaten and would have been a major source of protein for those who could not afford scarce meat. I suspect this is due to over weening Anglo saxon influence in these matters. And the most popular meat was that evil fatty lamb!
Hear hear. Though the reputable Zoe have done much citizen science research and found that the gut biome is the dominating factor in our health and that a colourful, plant based diet is best for a healthy gut biome. I have yet to discover this for myself!
I see nothing wrong with eating a wide variety of fruit and veg of all colours but I do not agree that these should be the basis of your diet as opposed to say non plant foods. Any chart of nutritional elements of vitamins and minerals will show that weight for weight animal products are far more concentrated nutritionally and easier for our bodies to assimilate. Certain things like vit B12 , vit D3 are impossible to obtain from a vegan diet and must be supplemented. Iron too is often very low in vegans. Quite frankly I believe this plant based diet is just another fad like low fat was from the mid 70s onwards and time will show how mistaken healthwise it is. Especially as vegan UPFs are even worse than non vegan ones and most people have neither the time nor culinary skills to make vegan food both appetising and fulfil nutritional reqirements.
Agreed. Especially if you're only feeding one. It becomes very wasteful and expensive.
Please note anyone reading the above that it is vitamin K2 we are talking about not K1 which helps with blood clotting and supplements of which should definitely be avoided if you're on anti coagulents. In fact my mum, who was on warfarin, was told never to eat broccoli (which is high in K1).
You are right. I'm lucky perhaps in having come from a family, and even more so married into a family, where decent home-prepared-from-scratch food has always been the staple. My son has married a lovely farm-raised Romanian woman who is equally enthusiastic about "whole" foods and without any faddiness, just a common sense approach. Lactose intolerance isn't something I hear much about from friends and relatives, even though, as you say, it seems pervasive.
It's no surprise that a lack of real knowledge exists regarding diet what with the massive industrialisation of food production and its being in the hands of, what, three major US manufacturers? More than that, though, wealth brings leisure time and, with that, a greater focus on and anxiety about the minutiae of health. IBS, for example, seems to be vastly more a feature of the wealthier West, and people with time on their hands to worry about their ills and a health system willing to listen. One has to wonder just how much "ill" health isn't a "natural" thing that has become magnified by anxiety (i.e. the "worried well") - an anxiety fed by the media. Everywhere we turn we are reminded that we are going to die of something or develop dementia - as a natural-born worrier, I hate it.
With regards to ultra-processing, yes, but it took a while to grab the media's attention. I wonder about it, though. Flour - of whatever grain origin - is heavily processed by being ground into ever finer particles. Is that ultra-processed? If so, many foods contain flour. There's no doubt that the digestion of different grain sizes alters a very great deal what happens in the intestines.
Add to that the levels of pesticide use which, to my surprise, is going through the roof rather than diminishing, and, goodness me, it's amazing we manage as well as we do.
Steve
I don't think we are managing that well. Apparently there is an explosion of early onset (before 50 ) colorectal cancer at the moment. Nobody really knows the cause but it could be that this is the generation that has lived all their life eating a diet with a lot of UPFs and very little fibre. When we were kids there were no ready meals. My mother was a poor cook - her mother a really bad cook- and was uninterested in food. I went to uni unable to cook as she had never taught my sister and I . She hated all veg apart from peas and her cabbage (which we got because "it was good for us") was revolting. Luckily I did inherit a keen interest in food from somebody in the family so I taught myself to cook. I have never eaten McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken in my life. One of the things I hated about living in Brum was the ubiquitous fast food outlets that to my mind smelled of rancid fat when one passed by. I remember being struck when we first started holidaying here that the strong public food smells were roasting chickens , coffee and what wafted out of people's windows when they were cooking lunch! Unfortunately ready meals have come here too - though there is nowhere near the choice there is in the UK and the French are still aware that they are an inferior choice. In cities fast food outlets abound . But there are more restaurants where you can get a proper meal at modest prices. Obesity is on the rise though at 17% is well below rates in the US and UK. There is more effort on the part of government to combat poor food choices with health warnings on fast food ads.
I know that I am biased as my visits to France were always such a memorable delight, but I feel that your adopted country has so much going for it compared with benighted Blighty. It might be just the Midlands where I live, but there's a sense of the doldrums here and it seems to have been growing from the years following the 2008 banking crash, more recently Brexit, covid and BoJo, then the fuel and NHS crises. We need some good news! Maybe a change of government will bring about a change of mood for the better? I somehow doubt it but hope for the best.
Steve
Oh there are lots of problems here too! We have a much worse Islamist terrorist problem than the UK . Only last week a secondary school head teacher has resigned because of death threats because he told a girl to remove her hijab in school (they are banned by law here along with other religious symbols in school) and she refused. The teachers are all very afraid as 2 teachers have had their throats cut by Islamist terrorists in the last 3 years and the situation in the schools is very bad. But the middle of France is very different from the Midlands in England . The Massif Central is a beautiful area. There is a sense of the doldrums here too but it is felt more by people in country areas than the cities. There are large swathes of rural France where there are no GPs as retiring doctors are not being replaced . Young doctors do not wish to live in th sticks! The regional capital of the Limousin Limoges which is about 50km from our village is a verb here. Limoger is to send an official to the sticks as a punishment!
It’s so sad to read that about the headteacher. We have a schoolteacher in hiding, too. We do seem to be heading towards a different and worrying future. What has always added to my love of France was its embracing of secularism, something that I envied and wished we could emulate. Not so very long ago, it seemed an established and universally accepted idea in France, but perhaps no longer? Times they are a-changin’, eh?
Steve
Laïcité is certainly under attack. I remember when we went to the ceremony for welcoming us as new French citizens in 2010 there was a talk about what being French meant - Republican ideals and the importance of laïcité featured strongly. But polls show that among the young there is less regard for it. Times are indeed a changing and not for the better!
Yes - the young seem from research to be preferring a "strong" leader with a sense of "direction" - even if that means an authoritarian right-wing government
I do so hope not. But I fear it. Somebody once said that when people stop believing in God they will come to believe in all kinds of things. What many most want is structure and discipline and, too many, that seems to need to be imposed from without rather than bringing their own inner resources to bear. The increasingly yawning gap between the haves and have nots isn't helping.
Steve
Here's the interaction results from drugs.com for your 2 medications ...
Please don't take any supplements without checking with your pharmacist or doctor
I love your confidence in the GP system. Id need to be very ill before I'd go to them and as for checking with them about supplements I might as well ask my cat. GPs are wedded to pharmaceuticals, they won't support you taking much in the way of supplements unless they are very well known like Vit D, they know very little so won't support anything that's not made by big pharma. There is plenty of information on the net from reliable sources (Dr. Mercola for one) to inform and guide those interested.
I Obviously have a far better GP than you. There are two doctors at our surgery who are always happy to discuss supplements although that means there are 5 who won't.
Getting an appointment would be the first hurdle. There are about a dozen GPs of varying sorts, I have a fairly good rapport with one, the rest I see only if I have to. There was one who would do pretty much whatever you asked like referrals and blood tests but when I asked about trialling Levo, she said she couldn't prescribe it because my blood results were within range so it would be against practice guidelines, I asked would she monitor me if I sourced my own? Nope for the same reason. Never mind all my symptoms, my T4 at the bottom of the range, my female family members both being hypo and having PA. She's left now.
After having bone density test my GP simply sent prescription to my pharmacist without even speaking to me about the fact that I had osteoporosis. After I read all the info on the meds prescribed I declined and didn’t touch them, as they were positively scary. I’ve decided at 83 that I’m just going to try the natural route.
Hi Snoopy , dont quote me but you can research it yourself, if i remember right k2mk7 comes from natto or nattokinase which is said to have anti clotting abilities.
Well. That was a fascinating conversation. I have recently been diagnosed with claudication - not sure which type yet. The dreaded "they" are going to prescribe clopidogrel, the name of which is rather off-putting in the first place . I am 70, and have taken a large doses of Vit D combined with K2 for years now. I also went my own way with thyroid meds. I read the Bowles book on D3 , took his advice, and all my so-called senile warts went banonkers and started to move to different places on my body!! Yet another road to navigate!!
Sheena (as you can tell I am a gal!!)
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