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Vitamin K2 for the life science industry
The vitamin for a vital society

Vitamin K2: Underestimated nutrient for strong bones and a healthy heart?

In the world of vit­a­mins and min­er­als, there are some that are often over­looked, even though they play a cru­cial role in our health. One of these vit­a­mins is vit­a­min K. It refers to a group of fat-sol­u­ble vit­a­mins that are essen­tial for humans. They are main­ly need­ed for blood clot­ting, vas­cu­lar health and bone for­ma­tion. There are two nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring forms of vit­a­min K: phyl­lo­qui­none (vit­a­min K1) and menaquinone (vit­a­min K2).

Vit­a­min K2 exists in var­i­ous forms. They dif­fer in the length of their iso­prenoid side chain (Mk‑n) and their form (Cis/trans), where­by the “Mk” stands for “menan­quinone” and the “n” for the num­ber of iso­prenoid units. The most com­mon forms of vit­a­min K2 are Mk‑4 and Mk‑7.

Descrip­tionVit­a­min K1 PhylloquinoneVit­a­min K2 Menaquinone Mk‑4Vit­a­min K2 Menaquinone Mk‑7
Func­tionBlood clot­tingBone and car­dio­vas­cu­lar healthBone and car­dio­vas­cu­lar health
Bioavail­abil­i­tyLow bioavail­abil­i­tyNor­mal bioavailabilityHigh bioavail­abil­i­ty
Half-life*1–2 hours1–2 hours72 hours
SourcesPlant-based foodsCheese, goose liv­er, ani­mal productsNat­to

*The half-life defines the time in which the con­cen­tra­tion of vit­a­min K2 in the blood plas­ma falls to half its orig­i­nal value.

Vitamin K2 against today’s common diseases?

In com­bi­na­tion with vit­a­min D and cal­ci­um, vit­a­min K2 has a deci­sive influ­ence on bone and vas­cu­lar health. Osteo­poro­sis and arte­rioscle­ro­sis are two of the most com­mon dis­eases among old­er peo­ple. It is esti­mat­ed that more than 200 mil­lion peo­ple cur­rent­ly suf­fer from osteo­poro­sis. The glob­al preva­lence of arte­rioscle­ro­sis in peo­ple aged 30 — 79 years is esti­mat­ed to be 27.6% in 2020, which cor­re­sponds to around 1 bil­lion peo­ple affect­ed by arteriosclerosis.

Arte­rioscle­ro­sis and osteo­poro­sis are there­fore wide­spread dis­eases in the pop­u­la­tion — and the trend is ris­ing. Cal­ci­um sup­ple­ments are often used to pre­vent osteo­poro­sis, but an excess of cal­ci­um can lead to cal­ci­fi­ca­tion of the arter­ies and thus increase the risk of arte­rioscle­ro­sis, as cal­ci­um deposits can increase the risk of blood clots, pul­monary embolisms, heart attacks and strokes. Numer­ous stud­ies, how­ev­er, have shown a pos­i­tive cor­re­la­tion between vit­a­min K2 and a healthy car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem and bone health in humans. This in turn offers the life sci­ence indus­try numer­ous poten­tials for the devel­op­ment of prod­ucts con­tain­ing vit­a­min K2.

Effect of vitamin K2 in the body

Vit­a­min K is absorbed in the intes­tine and trans­port­ed via the blood to the liv­er, where it ful­fills its main func­tion. The main func­tion of vit­a­min K2 — pri­mar­i­ly in the high­ly bioac­tive form all-trans MK‑7 — is to reg­u­late the cal­ci­um bal­ance in the body. It acti­vates spe­cif­ic pro­teins that are respon­si­ble for the incor­po­ra­tion of cal­ci­um into the bones and pro­tec­tion against cal­ci­um deposits in the arter­ies. This helps to main­tain bone health while reduc­ing the risk of arte­rioscle­ro­sis and osteo­poro­sis. The lat­est study results also indi­cate that vit­a­min K2 has an anti­spas­mod­ic effect.

Bones are a dynam­ic struc­ture that is con­stant­ly being built and remod­eled. Around eight per­cent of the skele­ton is renewed every year. Bone regen­er­a­tion is main­ly con­trolled by two cell types: osteo­clasts and osteoblasts.

On the one hand, vit­a­min K2 acti­vates a pro­tein (the matrix Gla pro­tein (cMGP)), which binds cal­ci­um in the blood­stream and thus makes it avail­able for bone for­ma­tion. On the oth­er hand, it car­boxy­lates (= acti­vates) osteo­cal­cin: cal­ci­um can now be stored in the bone structure.

In short, vit­a­min K2 puts the cal­ci­um in the right place.

Oseteoclast

Osteo­clasts are spe­cial­ized cells that are respon­si­ble for the break­down of bone struc­ture. They dis­solve the min­er­al bone matrix and resorb the released min­er­als, espe­cial­ly cal­ci­um. This process is known as bone resorp­tion and is impor­tant for remov­ing old or dam­aged bone sub­stances and mak­ing room for new bone tissue.

Osteoblast

Osteoblasts are the cells that build new bone tis­sue. They secrete osteo­cal­cin, pro­duce the organ­ic bone matrix and min­er­al­ize it with cal­ci­um and phos­phate to ensure the typ­i­cal strength of the bone.

Slide 1
Slide 2

Vitamin K2 against arteriosclerosis

Arter­ies and ves­sels hard­en in the course of life and lose flex­i­bil­i­ty because lipids and cal­ci­um are deposit­ed in the ves­sel walls (Slide 1).

When matrix Gla pro­teins (MGP) are uncar­boxy­lat­ed (uc), cal­ci­um is deposit­ed in the arte­r­i­al walls. This leads to stiff­en­ing of the arte­r­i­al walls, impairs car­dio­vas­cu­lar func­tion and increas­es the risk of blood clots, pul­monary embolisms, heart attacks and strokes. (Slide 2)

Vit­a­min K2 acti­vates the MG pro­teins (from ucMGP to cMGP), which then bind excess cal­ci­um in the blood­stream and pre­vent it from being deposit­ed in the soft tis­sues of the bloodstream.

Vit­a­min K2 is there­fore also of cen­tral impor­tance for heart health.

Why should vitamin K2 be supplemented?

Vit­a­min K2 does occur nat­u­ral­ly in some foods, such as matured cheese, eggs, sauer­kraut or fer­ment­ed soy­beans (nat­to). How­ev­er, the high­ly bioavail­able trans-MK‑7 is much hard­er to find in foods and only in small quan­ti­ties. This means that food sources alone are not suf­fi­cient to cov­er the body’s require­ments. In addi­tion, com­pared to oth­er fat-sol­u­ble vit­a­mins, vit­a­min K2 can only be stored by the body to a lim­it­ed extent, which is why a suf­fi­cient dai­ly intake is important.

Sup­ple­men­ta­tion with vit­a­min K2 can be use­ful if:

  • the diet con­tains lit­tle vit­a­min K2-con­tain­ing food,
  • spe­cif­ic health needs, such as osteo­poro­sis or car­dio­vas­cu­lar disease,
  • to ensure that the body is sup­plied with enough vit­a­min K2 for opti­mal bone health or
  • to pre­vent vas­cu­lar cal­ci­fi­ca­tion caused by cal­ci­um deposits.

Vitamin K2 daily requirement and who belongs to the risk group for a deficiency

AgeVit­a­min K intake rec­om­men­da­tion µg/day
MenWomen
25 to 51 years7060
From 51 years8065
Preg­nant women60
Breast­feed­ing60

The Ger­man Nutri­tion Soci­ety (DGE) rec­om­mends an intake of 70 µg to 80 µg vit­a­min K per day for adult men and 60 µg to 65 µg vit­a­min K per day for adult women. An increased need for vit­a­min K2 can occur in var­i­ous groups of peo­ple. Peo­ple with an unbal­anced or unbal­anced diet, cer­tain ill­ness­es, old­er peo­ple and peo­ple tak­ing antibi­otics are par­tic­u­lar­ly at risk. In the case of chron­ic intesti­nal dis­or­ders or osteo­poro­sis, an addi­tion­al sup­ply of nutri­ents may be nec­es­sary to ensure an ade­quate sup­ply of vit­a­min K2.

Breast­fed infants are also at risk of vit­a­min K defi­cien­cy, as vit­a­min K is only trans­port­ed insuf­fi­cient­ly via the pla­cen­ta, the con­cen­tra­tions of coag­u­la­tion fac­tors are low and the infan­t’s intes­tine is ster­ile at and after birth (= no for­ma­tion of vit­a­min K2 via intesti­nal bac­te­ria). In addi­tion, breast milk only con­tains small amounts of vit­a­min K. To pre­vent bleed­ing ten­den­cies, infants are there­fore giv­en vit­a­min K imme­di­ate­ly after birth as a pro­phy­lac­tic measure.

Application of vitamin K2 in various industries

Vit­a­min K2 is incor­po­rat­ed into con­sumer prod­ucts in var­i­ous forms, includ­ing cap­sules, tablets, pow­der and oil. This ver­sa­til­i­ty allows vit­a­min K2 to be used in a vari­ety of indus­tries and made avail­able to a wide range of consumers.

In the dietary sup­ple­ment indus­try, it is often offered in the form of cap­sules and tablets to sup­port bone health and heart health. In the food indus­try, vit­a­min K2 is found in func­tion­al foods such as for­ti­fied dairy prod­ucts and fer­ment­ed foods. In some cas­es, vit­a­min K2 is also used in the cos­met­ics indus­try to enrich skin care prod­ucts that pro­mote skin health. Final­ly, vit­a­min K2 plays a role in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, espe­cial­ly in the devel­op­ment of drugs for the treat­ment of osteo­poro­sis and car­dio­vas­cu­lar diseases.

Vitamin K2: challenges in terms of quality and availability on the market

The qual­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty of vit­a­min K2 as a raw mate­r­i­al pos­es con­sid­er­able chal­lenges for the mar­ket. The pro­duc­tion of high-qual­i­ty vit­a­min K2 is com­plex and expen­sive. At the same time, there are vit­a­min K ver­sions that are less com­plex to pro­duce but also less bioavail­able. They do not offer the same health ben­e­fits as MAG­NE­SI­A’s RiviK2®.

Due to the high demand and lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of high-qual­i­ty vit­a­min K2, some sup­pli­ers tend to dilute their prod­ucts or sell infe­ri­or ver­sions as high-qual­i­ty. This can not only com­pro­mise the effec­tive­ness of the end prod­ucts, but also pose poten­tial health risks to consumers.

High-qual­i­ty vit­a­min K2, such as the brand­ed prod­uct RiviK2®, which we have exclu­sive­ly in our port­fo­lio, is char­ac­ter­ized by high bioavail­abil­i­ty and puri­ty. It is man­u­fac­tured accord­ing to strict puri­ty cri­te­ria and the prod­uct spec­i­fi­ca­tions are reg­u­lar­ly checked by our qual­i­ty man­age­ment team.

You can there­fore be sure that you are offer­ing your con­sumers the best pos­si­ble qual­i­ty to sup­port their health in the best pos­si­ble way.

Below you will find a selec­tion of our most pop­u­lar RiviK2® vari­ants. Please con­tact us for fur­ther dosages or oth­er carriers.

Oil-based vitamin K2

MAGNESIA 7801202

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • Soy­bean oil base
  • 1,500 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

MAGNESIA 7801200

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • Soy­bean oil base
  • 2,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

MAGNESIA 7801205

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • MCT oil base
  • 10,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

MAGNESIA 7801201

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • MCT oil base
  • 20,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

MAGNESIA 7801204

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • Olive oil base
  • 20,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

Maltodextrin-based vitamin K2

MAGNESIA 7801300

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • Mal­todex­trin base
  • 2,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

MAGNESIA 7801301

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • Basis Mal­todex­trin
  • 10,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

MAGNESIA 7801302

RiviK2® Vit­a­min K2 

  • MCC base
  • 13,000 ppm
  • all-trans MK‑7
  • High­ly bioavailable

Down­load specification

Contact us now

Chris­t­ian Nega and the NEM team sup­ports you with tech­ni­cal know-how and finds tai­lor-made solu­tions for your prod­uct idea. 

Also ask for detailed infor­ma­tion about spec­i­fi­ca­tions, safe­ty data sheets or mate­r­i­al sam­ples.

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