Eat Your Greens: Vitamin K May Help Prevent Certain Heart Diseases

It’s time to make like Popeye and fill your plate with all things green. New research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth found that people who eat a diet rich in vitamin K — which is found in green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach and Swiss chard — have a lower risk of developing atherosclerosis-related cardiovascular disease (conditions that affect the heart or blood vessels).

In fact, this clever little vitamin has been shown to lower the risk of certain heart-related illnesses by 34 percent, which is huge. Researchers studied data from more than 50,000 people who took part in the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health study over a period of 23 years to see whether people who ate more foods rich in vitamin K had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, which is related to a build-up in the arteries.

According to researchers from ECU, there are two types of vitamin K found in food. The first is vitamin K1, which comes from green leafy veggies and vegetable oils, while vitamin K2 is found in meat, eggs and fermented foods like cheese. Those who had the highest consumption of vitamin K1 in their diets were 21 percent less likely to be hospitalised with cardiovascular disease related to atherosclerosis.

The risk of hospitalisation for those with high consumption levels of vitamin K2 was 14 percent lower. This lower risk was experienced for all heart disease related to atherosclerosis, including peripheral artery disease which was lowered by 34 percent thanks to vitamin K.

According to ECU researcher and senior author, Dr Nicola Bondonno, while further research is needed in this area, these preliminary findings do suggest that vitamin K may play an important role in protecting people against cardiovascular disease.

“Current dietary guidelines for the consumption of vitamin K are generally only based on the amount of vitamin K1 a person should consume to ensure that their blood can coagulate,” Dr Bondonno said in a press release. “However, there is growing evidence that intakes of vitamin K above the current guidelines can afford further protection against the development of other diseases, such as atherosclerosis.

“Although more research is needed to fully understand the process, we believe that vitamin K works by protecting against the calcium build-up in the major arteries of the body leading to vascular calcification.”

While eating more green veggies to improve heart health might not sound overly surprising, this research is extremely helpful in pinpointing easy ways we can potentially help protect ourselves against heart-related diseases.

“Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death in Australia and there’s still a limited understanding of the importance of different vitamins found in food and their effect on heart attacks, strokes and peripheral artery disease,” said University of Western Australia researcher and first author on the study, Dr Jaime Bellinge.

“These findings shed light on the potentially important effect that vitamin K has on the killer disease and reinforces the importance of a healthy diet in preventing it.”