Vitamin K and Cancer
While researchers in Japan were studying the role of vitamin K2 as the menaquinone-4 (MK-4) form in the prevention of bone loss in females with liver disease, they discovered another possible effect. This two-year study that involved 21 women with viral liver cirrhosis found that women in the supplement group were 90% less likely to develop liver cancer. A German study performed on men with prostate cancer found a significant inverse relationship between vitamin K2 consumption and advanced prostate cancer.
In 2006, a clinical trial showed that K2 as the menaquinone-4 (MK-4) (called menatetrenone in the study) might be able to reduce recurrence of liver cancer after surgery. It should be noted that this was a small pilot study and other similar studies did not show much effect. MK4 is now being tested along with other drugs to reduce liver cancer and has show promising early results.
Read more about this topic: Vitamin K
Famous quotes containing the word cancer:
“I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1976–1959)