Evidence Shows Vitamin D Could Lead to an Early Death

This is the third part of our series on Vitamin K-2.

So why does the title mention Vitamin D?

Because I’m trying to trick you into reading an article on Vitamin D, of course, cue evil laugh…

No, that’s not it at all.

The truth is there’s a vital link between Vitamin D, Calcium, and Vitamin K-2 that until very recently wasn’t known.

And, unfortunately for many, this discovery came a little too late.

There’s no doubt about it. Vitamin D is an incredibly important component to superior health. I would never dare tell you to stop taking Vitamin D. There’s more than enough evidence to show without it, you will live a life that is anything but robust and joyful.

But, on that note, I couldn’t recommend vitamin D supplementation if I didn’t first tell you about the distinct problem associated with vitamin D supplementation in the absence of vitamin K-2.

Check out how this works.

The Crazy Vitamin D Connection You Need to Learn About

So what does vitamin D have to do with vitamin K-2?

Well, it all starts with calcium.

Let’s talk about modern health and modern dietary recommendations.

For years, scientists (as well as doctors) have been recommending a high intake of dietary calcium in order to help build healthy bones.

In recent years the condition known as osteoporosis has been on the rise. Osteoporosis, as you might know results from the inability of the body to localize calcium in the bones. It affects more people than just about any other health condition out there. And, in many cases, it can prove fatal.

There’s nothing funny about an old woman with a broken hip. No, not even in Life Alert commercials.

To help reverse osteoporosis and give people a new lease on life, doctors started to recommend more calcium in the diet.

The theory was, if you get more calcium in your diet, you’ll get stronger bones.

That’s why those “Drink Milk” commercials were all over TV for years. They believed (incorrectly) to build stronger bones you only needed more calcium. If only the “Drink Milk” commercials weren’t so darn successful. I can still see all the white milk mustaches in my sleep.

Surprisingly, what research has shown is adding calcium to the diet doesn’t actually increase bone health.

And, to make things worse, physicians have been recommending Vitamin D supplementation for better bone health, too.

But, the truth is, both of these recommendations have actually led to an increase in cardiovascular problems that result in early death.

As Kate Rheaume-Bleue notes in her book “The Calcium Paradox,”

Calcium supplementation increases the occurrence of heart attack and stroke with-or-without vitamin D, showing that the latter has no protective effect here. Even worse, it’s possible that the soaring popularity of vitamin D might actually be compounding the problem.

Under certain circumstances, vitamin D increases arterial calcification. Vitamin D specifically accelerates the accumulation of arterial calcification in vitamin K2–deficient conditions. With all the good news about vitamin D, how could this be? The news about vitamin D hasn’t been all good, just the widely publicized news.

We know vitamin D is beneficial for bone health. When it comes to heart health, the research has been decidedly mixed. The results are so confusing and conflicting that researchers are only just now making sense of it. Many studies indicate that vitamin D deficiency is associated with heart disease, and as vitamin D levels go up, arterial calcification decreases.

Other studies show just the opposite— that higher blood levels of vitamin D are associated with more arterial plaque. This double-edged sword can be partially explained by understanding what vitamin D does and doesn’t do with calcium.

If you paid attention you’ll notice she notes vitamin D only creates these problems in people who are deficient in vitamin K-2.

That means vitamin D with K-2 around is the key aspect of healthy bones (and a healthy heart).

But what is it about K-2 that makes it so special?

I’ll show you below.

K-2’s Amazing Ability To Build Bone Density…And Help Save Your Life

The way K-2 works is it activates proteins in your body which are essential for moving calcium to the places it needs to be.

In particular, it activates osteocalcin (which you learned about in part 2). Osteocalcin’s main purpose is to bring calcium into the teeth and the bones. That’s where calcium is designed to be…it’s not meant to be in your arteries or collected in the kidneys.

Another protein it works with is called matrix gla protein (MGP).

Think of MGP kind of as a school teacher patrolling the hallways during class, looking for students who are up to no good.

MGP scours the body for “loose” calcium and then brings it back to bones and teeth. Typically, calcium is found in tissues like arteries and veins. When it finds that calcium, MGP says, “Get back to where you belong.”

When K-2 is absent, neither Osteocalcin nor MGP are out there doing their jobs.

The result, as you might guess, is calcium ends up in places it shouldn’t be.

What happens then is your bones grow weak, your arteries become clogged, and your health declines.

That’s the missing link that has ultimately led to severe health complications in recent years.

So, And is that it?

Is that all you need to worry about?

Yes and no.

Suffice it to say you should still continue to try and get enough calcium, Vitamin D, and Vitamin K-2 in your diet

But, that’s not where everything just stops.

I’ll be tapping one more piece of information in regards to calcium in my next article.

There are associations with Vitamin A and Magnesium and how it interacts with calcium, vitamin D and vitamin K-2, but it’s not within the scope of this article to cover those.

Again, the point being is balance and an understanding of how your health is affected by other variables.

At the end of the day, you need vitamin K-2 more than anything.

That’s because most of the other nutrients mentioned are generally found in adequate supply through diet and through supplementation.

K-2, is not.

You may want to take Vitamin K-2, since it is very difficult to get enough naturally.

If you’re interested in learning more about our Vitamin K-2 click here.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you learned something new today

Talk soon,     

Dr. Wiggy
www.HealthAsItOughtToBe.com