Vitamin K2- Mk-4 Vs Mk-7, Did Any Work For You?

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
I've been using Thorne vit-K2 for more than a year. I used to always have several visible bruises, and now I only see an occasional one. There may be other factors too (eg more sugar -> less clumsiness), but I gather vit-K can make this kind of a difference.
 
OP
F

freal

Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
209
I am asking since I just realized Carlson mk-4 in 1 mg dose that I have been taking is useless. I didnt even take care of the clotting?? Weird. For monhs I was bleeding while brushing teeth and flossing, now I took some spinach and it went away.

Maybe a higher dose is needed?
tara said:
I've been using Thorne vit-K2 for more than a year. I used to always have several visible bruises, and now I only see an occasional one. There may be other factors too (eg more sugar -> less clumsiness), but I gather vit-K can make this kind of a difference.

How much do you take in mg/day? Thorne is a vitamin mk-4 in oil base right?

The research om mk-7 is much more promising.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
freal said:
I am asking since I just realized Carlson mk-4 in 1 mg dose that I have been taking is useless. I didnt even take care of the clotting?? Weird. For monhs I was bleeding while brushing teeth and flossing, now I took some spinach and it went away.

Maybe a higher dose is needed?
tara said:
I've been using Thorne vit-K2 for more than a year. I used to always have several visible bruises, and now I only see an occasional one. There may be other factors too (eg more sugar -> less clumsiness), but I gather vit-K can make this kind of a difference.

How much do you take in mg/day? Thorne is a vitamin mk-4 in oil base right?

The research om mk-7 is much more promising.
1 mg of mk4? That is nothing. I take 10 mg. and the research on mk7 should be taken with a grain of salt. It is cheaper to make and the research probably comes from the supplement companies selling it. Mk4 is the form found in animal foods from what I understand.
 
OP
F

freal

Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
209
JRMoney15 said:
1 mg of mk4? That is nothing. I take 10 mg. and the research on mk7 should be taken with a grain of salt. It is cheaper to make and the research probably comes from the supplement companies selling it. Mk4 is the form found in animal foods from what I understand.


Hmm. I cant seem to find information about mk-4 and clotting. Does mk-4 take care of clotting like K1 or not. In my case it didnt.

The guy from Netherlands, Dr Vermeer did most of the studies on mk-7, you can check it online. I dont know, it surely isnt cheaper thank mk-4, since no synthetic versions are available. Mk-4 probably needs to be a huge dose?
 

schultz

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
2,653
I like ThorneK2 drops (which I believe is MK-4). It has completely eliminated tooth sensitivity in myself.

As far as one type of the vitamin being better than the other? I'm not sure we will know the answer to that for a while still. More research needs to be done.

There seems to be a lack of information about the higher number menaquinones like 10 to 14. Beef liver, specifically, seems to be high in this range.

Here is a quote from this article::: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/102/3/331.full.pdf

"In 1967, Matschiner et al. reported isolation of a highly lipophilic sample of vitamin K from extracts of beef liver. The principal forms of vitamin K in this tissue were subsequently identified as menaquinones-10, 11, and 12"

This article is the only study I can find that measures MK-4 to MK-13. Here is a chart from the article that is very interesting...



So according to this one study, beef liver has about 117mcg per 100g of liver, which is pretty decent. For all we know, it could turn out that the higher MK's like 10-14 are more active in humans. I look forward to future research! (or old research that people can dig up)
 

Attachments

  • hirauchi1989.pdf
    428.8 KB · Views: 120
  • KinLiver.jpg
    KinLiver.jpg
    26.6 KB · Views: 1,668

YuraCZ

Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
674
Btw grass fed beef liver vs grain fed beef liver same as grass fed butter (yellow color) vs grain fed butter(white color). There is a HUGE difference in vitK2 content..
 

schultz

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
2,653
YuraCZ said:
Btw grass fed beef liver vs grain fed beef liver same as grass fed butter (yellow color) vs grain fed butter(white color). There is a HUGE difference in vitK2 content..

I'm sure there is a difference, unfortunately the study I listed didn't mention what the cows ate. Hopefully someone does a study that compares the levels in stuff like butter, milk and liver. Weston Price compared them and mentions it in his book but I don't really know what he was measuring since he called it "activator x". Was it MK-4? Maybe.

As far as the color goes, that is just carotenes from the grass. It really just acts as an indicator that an animal may be eating more green forage (which could also mean more vitamin K). Certain breeds of livestock have more carotene in the milk. Goats for example have milk that makes pure white butter because it contains vitamin a instead of carotene (which is better). The same goes for egg yolks. My chickens have dark yolks in the summer when they eat grass but in the winter I feed them a lot of beef liver. The eggs contain way more vitamin A in the winter because of the diet but are really pale.

YuraCZ said:
Only Natto or goose liver are significant sources of vit K2 and K1 from the veggies is useless for calcium management..

According to the study I posted, beef liver is also a significant source of K2. Also it seems cheese is a decent source of MK-9. I'm not sure how useful MK-9 is, but I'm not sure it has been researched. I think it is made by bacteria in the cheese making process. Humans seem to store the high number MK's like MK-9 to MK-13 in the liver and we probably make these in the gut. I'm guessing that's why cows liver has the higher number MK's because of the bacteria in their rumen. Maybe the higher number MK's are more easily stored in the liver (they are more lipophilic).
 

YuraCZ

Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
674
schultz said:
As far as the color goes, that is just carotenes from the grass. It really just acts as an indicator that an animal may be eating more green forage (which could also mean more vitamin K). Certain breeds of livestock have more carotene in the milk. Goats for example have milk that makes pure white butter because it contains vitamin a instead of carotene (which is better). The same goes for egg yolks. My chickens have dark yolks in the summer when they eat grass but in the winter I feed them a lot of beef liver. The eggs contain way more vitamin A in the winter because of the diet but are really pale.
Grass fed butter and meat has more vit K2, because cows convert K1 from the grass for us...
 

schultz

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
2,653
YuraCZ said:
schultz said:
As far as the color goes, that is just carotenes from the grass. It really just acts as an indicator that an animal may be eating more green forage (which could also mean more vitamin K). Certain breeds of livestock have more carotene in the milk. Goats for example have milk that makes pure white butter because it contains vitamin a instead of carotene (which is better). The same goes for egg yolks. My chickens have dark yolks in the summer when they eat grass but in the winter I feed them a lot of beef liver. The eggs contain way more vitamin A in the winter because of the diet but are really pale.
Grass fed butter and meat has more vit K2, because cows convert K1 from the grass for us...

Yep. My point was that the yellow colour itself is not vitamin K2 and that white butter can still have K2 because some livestock convert all the carotene to retinol making the butter white. White butter can still be pastured. Yellow butter can have no K2 (corn has carotene).

Cows don't convert the vitamin K to K2, it's the bacteria in the rumen.
 

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
freal said:
I am asking since I just realized Carlson mk-4 in 1 mg dose that I have been taking is useless. I didnt even take care of the clotting?? Weird. For monhs I was bleeding while brushing teeth and flossing, now I took some spinach and it went away.

Maybe a higher dose is needed?
tara said:
I've been using Thorne vit-K2 for more than a year. I used to always have several visible bruises, and now I only see an occasional one. There may be other factors too (eg more sugar -> less clumsiness), but I gather vit-K can make this kind of a difference.

How much do you take in mg/day? Thorne is a vitamin mk-4 in oil base right?

The research om mk-7 is much more promising.

I'm taking 2-3 mg Thorne K2 (mark 4 I think?) now, but for the first year I was taking 2-3 mg every 2-3 days, for an average of about 1mg/day, and that's when I noticed the easy bruising was gone. I was also eating a little liver regularly, and a little leafy greens regularly (the latter I'd been eating all the while I had the easy bruising, the liver I started about 2 yrs ago, along with increases in any nutrients including sugar, and the K2 about a year and a half ago).

I don't agree with Yura that 1mg is nothing. It is several times higher than estimated RDA, and should provide significant value if you are needing it. I'm not aware of any problems with taking more, though, and there are studies of higher doses being useful for some conditions - Haidut's got some good posts on this, I think.
 

EnoreeG

Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2015
Messages
272
tara said:
I don't agree with Yura that 1mg is nothing. It is several times higher than estimated RDA, and should provide significant value if you are needing it.

I agree. Life Extension Foundation has a product I've taken before, "Super K with Advanced K2". They aren't taking any chances, so they include 1 mg of K1, 1 mg of K2-MK4 and then .2 mg K2-MK7 (which they say is valuable because it persists in the blood so much longer, for uptake wherever needed for 72 hours after ingestion.

I've favored the MK-4 version because that is the normal storage form for animals. The fact that it disappears from the blood quickly is only a sign of storage, not loss.

Many of the studies testing vitamin K to improve bone health or arterial health do use doses far greater than what are available in a few capsules per day of 1 mg. size.

This says you may still see an effect from taking 1-2 mg/day doses though:

Arterial Calcification

I do know that when I took a K2 supplement, the "scale" or plaque I could feel with my tongue on the inside of my lower teeth magically went away, just as though I'd had my teeth scraped. I take this to mean that improper calcium deposits had been rectified by the 1 capsule I took each day. At present, I'm trying to rely on Gouda cheese for my MK-4. I'll go back to supplements if I ever get my "plaque back".
 

schultz

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
2,653
johns74 said:

Wow, so chicken liver has a lot more MK4 than other types?

Yes, more than the types listed. Goose liver has much more than chickens though. I'm not sure if the goose liver has to be "foie gras" or not, but the amount is very high in it.

Egg yolks have some as well.
Egg Yolk (Netherlands): 32.1mcg per 100g of yolk
Egg Yolk (United States): 15.5mcg per 100g of yolk

100g of yolk is a lot though... maybe like 5 eggs?

Who knows how much a truly "free-range" chicken yolk could have? My chickens are not fenced in, they can go wherever they want. Maybe they have a higher number than the "Netherland" eggs? Also, if I'm giving them beef liver, maybe they can convert the high number MK's to MK-4?
 

Giraffe

Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2015
Messages
3,730
schultz said:
https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/84812/ I look forward to future research! (or old research that people can dig up)
I found this one...

Dietary intake of vitamin K and risk of prostate cancer in the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Heidelberg)

"Our results suggest an inverse association between the intake of menaquinones, but not that of phylloquinone, and prostate cancer."

"The associations were strongest for menaquinones from dairy products and in advanced cancer cases. Because the present study is presumably the first observational study on this topic, the results warrant confirmation by other studies."


http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/87/4/ ... l.pdf+html
 
Last edited by a moderator:

pboy

Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2013
Messages
1,681
ive never seen a single entity with more people in its nuts than vitamin K, only kale and garlic rival it
 

Amazoniac

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
8,583
Location
Not Uganda
I'd be careful about supplementing large doses of mk4 without balancing with the other fat-solubles. The way mk4 is found in natural producs is always balanced, and I could never find any source that reaches 500mcg/100g, not that taking beyond that implies that it's going to be toxic, but it's something to keep in mind. Mk7 on the other hand seems safer to consume in larger doses, not over 1mg. But I guess that it comes down to have them balanced, and if you megadose in one, increase all of them proportionally to antagonize.

45mg/d as Thorne suggests seems insanity!

I posted somewhere in the forum about the quinone content of fermented cod liver oil, and it's a lot, I just don't know how much of those quinones are mk4.
 

jyb

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2012
Messages
2,783
Location
UK
Amazoniac said:
45mg/d as Thorne suggests seems insanity!

It's a dose used in studies though. And I don't know if they cared about balancing.
 

Amazoniac

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
8,583
Location
Not Uganda
Maybe someone knows better here, but I've read in the past that K2 from K1 in our bodies doesn't always require bacterial fermentation. The main problem is that the liver has a limiting rate to redistribute and beyond that K1 becomes toxic. And due to that it's required to consume pre-formed K2.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom