A high menaquinone intake reduces the incidence of coronary heart disease

Background and Aim

Vitamin K dependent proteins have been demonstrated to inhibit vascular calcification. Data on the effect of vitamin K intake on coronary heart disease (CHD) risk, however, are scarce.

To examine the relationship between dietary vitamins K1 and K2 intake, and its subtypes, and the incidence of CHD.

Methods and Results

We used data from the Prospect–EPIC cohort consisting of 16,057 women, enrolled between 1993 and 1997 and aged 49–70 years, who were free of cardiovascular diseases at baseline. Intake of vitamin K and other nutrients was estimated with a food frequency questionnaire. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were used to analyse the data.

After a mean±SD follow-up of 8.1±1.6 years, we identified 480 incident cases of CHD. Mean vitamin K1 intake was 211.7±100.3μg/d and vitamin K2 intake was 29.1±12.8μg/d. After adjustment for traditional risk factors and dietary factors, we observed an inverse association between vitamin K2 and risk of CHD with a Hazard Ratio (HR) of 0.91 [95% CI 0.85–1.00] per 10μg/d vitamin K2 intake. This association was mainly due to vitamin K2 subtypes MK-7, MK-8 and MK-9. Vitamin K1 intake was not significantly related to CHD.

Conclusions

A high intake of menoquinones, especially MK-7, MK-8 and MK-9, could protect against CHD. However, more research is necessary to define optimal intake levels of vitamin K intake for the prevention of CHD.