Written by Marcia J. Egles, MD. Those with the highest Vitamin K-2 intakes had a 12% reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer compared to those with the lowest intakes.
Prostate cancer is the second most commonly occurring cancer in men in the United States. The prostate is a walnut-sized male organ located between the rectum and the urinary bladder. An estimated 80 per cent of males develop prostate cancer if they live to age 80. For many men with prostate cancer, the cancer does not progress beyond an early stage. Although one in six American males will get prostate cancer within his lifetime, only one man in 35 dies of the disease. Still, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American males (1). A recent study from Germany finds that a higher vitamin K nutritional status in men is associated with less progression of prostate cancer to its more deadly advanced stages.
Researchers recently did a follow-up cancer and nutrition study from a large Heidelburg study that involved 25,000 persons from 1994 until 2007. The researchers last year published findings of an association of lower rates of advanced prostate cancer among men with the highest vitamin K-2 levels based on dietary intake reports (2). They found a 12% risk reduction (p= 0.03) in advanced prostate cancer when those with the highest intakes of vitamin K-2 were compared to those with the lowest intakes.
The recent study verified the earlier findings by using a more accurate measure of the vitamin K nutritional state with a marker known as serum osteocalcin. The vitamin K content of various foods varies considerably, making estimates reported in food questionnaires to be of limited accuracy (3). The new study’s marker, an indirect measure of vitamin K functional state in the participants, is designed to overcome this potential source of error.
At the start of the original study, the participants were healthy adults ranging in age from 40 to 64. Over the course of the study, 250 men developed prostate cancer. These men were then compared with 494 men from the study without prostate cancer. As in the study reported last year, the rates for total prostate cancers did not vary with levels of vitamin K. However, when the focus was placed on the more aggressive forms of prostate cancer, the link to vitamin K levels was noted. Those in the top 25% of the vitamin K nutritional status had a 75 % reduction in the risk of advanced prostate cancer, compared to the men with the lowest 25% vitamin K status based on the vitamin K marker. (P = 0.01)
Vitamin K is known to exert anticancer effects on a variety of cancer cell lines, that is, on cancer cells in laboratory conditions (4) . This clinical study strengthens the conclusion that more adequate vitamin K status may help prevent progression of early prostate cancer.
Source: Nimptsch, Katharina, Sabine Rohrmann, Alexandra Nieters, and Jakob Linseisen. “Serum undercarboxylated osteocalcin as biomarker of vitamin K intake and risk of prostate cancer: a nested case-control study in the Heidelberg cohort of the European prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition.” Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Biomarkers 18, no. 1 (2009): 49-56.
© 2009 American Association for Cancer Research
Posted February 11, 2009.
Cautionary Note concerning Anti-Coagulation Therapy: Anyone taking the drug warfarin (Coumadin) should be aware that vitamin K can reverse the drug’s effects. Vitamin K supplementation would not be appropriate unless otherwise directed by the physician.
References:
- American Cancer Society
- Nimptsch K. Dietary intake of vitamin K and risk of prostate cancer in the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Heidelberg ). Am J Clin Nutr 2008; 87: 985-92.
- Thane CW, Paul AA, Bates CJ, Bolton-Smith C, Prentice A, Shearer MJ. Intake and sources of phylloquinone (vitamin K1): variation with socio-demographic and lifestyle factors in a national sample of British elderly people. Br J Nutr 2002;87:605–13.
- Lamson,DW The anticancer effects of vitamin K . Altern Med Rev 2003: 8:303-18.
