Vitamin K does not stem BMD decline in postmenopausal women with osteopenia

In a randomized controlled trial called the "Evaluate the Clinical use of vitamin K Supplementation in Postmenopausal Women with Osteopenia" (ECKO) trial, Angela Cheung and colleagues at the University of Toronto found that a high dose daily vitamin K1 supplement did not protect against age-related bone mineral density (BMD) decline. However, as reported in this week's PLoS Medicine, the findings also suggest that vitamin K1 may protect against fracture and cancer in postmenopausal women with osteopenia. Dr. Cheung and colleagues randomized 440 postmenopausal women with osteopenia to receive either 5 mg of vitamin K1 or a placebo daily for two years. Two hundred and sixty one of these women continued their treatment for two more years to gather information about the long-term effects of vitamin K1 supplementation. After two... [read full story]