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Posted on Apr 14, 2010, 6 a.m.
Consuming foods rich in vitamin K2, found in meats and cheeses, may reduce the risk of various cancers.
Previous studies have elucidated benefits of vitamin K2, most notably in promoting bone and cardiovascular health. Jakob Linseisen, from the German Research Centre for Environmental Health (Germany), and colleagues studied 24,340 subjects, ages 35 to 64 years, enrolled in the EPIC-Heidelberg study. The participants were following for over 10 years, during which 1,755 cases of cancer were documented, with 458 of these as fatal. The team found that those study subjects with the highest average intakes of vitamin K2 were 14% less likely to develop cancer, as compared to people with the lowest average intakes. Furthermore, increased vitamin K2 intakes corresponded to a 28% reduction in cancer mortality.
Katharina Nimptsch, Sabine Rohrmann, Rudolf Kaaks, Jakob Linseisen. “Dietary vitamin K intake in relation to cancer incidence and mortality: results from the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Heidelberg).” Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, Mar 24, 2010; doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28691.
