How Vitamin K2 Prevents Heart Disease

Heart disease is a number one killer. Vitamin K2 may help reduce your risk of heart disease. Atherosclerosis or in simpler English hardening of arteries can block blood flow. Plaque builds up in the blood vessels preventing proper blood flow. The plaque is made up of calcium and cholesterol and other stuff. 

   Calcium, the stuff that is good for your bones that you get from drinking milk can end up clotting your arteries. When the lining of the arteries gets damaged by LDL cholesterol for example, your endothelium repairs it by forming a cap from collagen over the injury. Calcium gets stuck and trapped in this cap, eventually accumulating, forming a hard material causing the arteries to harden. 

  To prevent this from happening you need to transport the calcium out of the arteries to the bones. This is where K2 comes into the picture. Not K1, rather K2. K2 is created by bacteria in your gut lining. So if we get enough K2 that slash our chances of getting heart disease. Thanks to a processed food diet, we generally don't get enough K2 from our diet. According to a Rotterdam Heart Study tracking 4,800 participants for seven years, K2 can reduce the risk of dying from heart disease by 57%. 

   Start incorporating K2 rich foods in your diet. Natto which is fermented soybeans is commonly eaten in Japan and is a big source of K2. I personally don't like the taste of it, but why not give it a try. !5 grams of it contain around 200 mcg of K2. Fermented vegetables like kombucha, kimchi, fermented sauerkraut (not the commercial sauerkraut in vinegar) can give you a decent amount of it. Another good source of K2 is found in free range eggs, grass-fed meats and cheesee. 

  You can also supplement with Vitamin K2 if you find it hard to get enough of these foods in your menu.