OAKLAND, Calif., Sep 21, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- U.S. researchers suggest
ensuring optimal dietary intakes of vitamin K can help prevent age-related
conditions such as bone fragility and heart disease.
Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute scientists said vitamin K is
concentrated in dark green plants such as spinach or Swiss chard, and is either
not present or present in only small amounts in most multivitamin pills.
Joyce McCann and Bruce Ames analyzed data from hundreds of published articles
dating back to the 1970s designed to test Ames' "triage" theory that provides a
new basis for determining the optimum intake of individual vitamins and
minerals.
The analysis, which strongly supports Ames' theory, scheduled to be published in
the October issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, supports
recommendations by some experts that non-clotting functions requiring vitamin K
may need higher intakes than are currently recommended.
Vitamin K is known as the "Koagulation" vitamin because about half of the 16
known proteins that depend on vitamin K are necessary for blood coagulation. The
other vitamin K-dependent proteins are involved in a variety of different
functions involving the skeletal, arterial, and immune systems, the researchers
said.
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