Supplement evidence

059 / 575Vitamin form

Vitamin K2 (MK-7)

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The short answer

Raises circulating MK-7 and supports vitamin-K-dependent proteins; clinical fracture benefit is unproven.

Evidence and scope: Conditional or population-specific
This status does not grade the ingredient for every goal, outcome, or person.
Important limitation: Benefit depends on the population, formulation, baseline status, and objective; results should not be generalized.
Before deciding: Key concern: Warfarin and other vitamin-K-antagonist therapy requires stable intake and prescriber approval.

01 / PRACTICAL GUIDE

Dose, absorption, and combinations

These are indication-specific reference or studied ranges—not a personalized prescription. Start with the objective, then check the form, label, medicines, and health conditions.

Reference range by objective

Bone-health plan90–180 mcg/day is common in trials

Reference or studied range—not a personalized prescription. The product label or a clinician may specify a different dose.

Dose source ↗

More is not automatically better. A clinician or product label may specify a different amount.

Absorption / solubilityFat-soluble / lipid-based

Fat-soluble or lipid-based. Absorption generally improves with a meal containing fat.

How it is commonly taken

Take with a fat-containing meal.

Do not combine casually

Warfarin and other vitamin-K-antagonist therapy requires stable intake and prescriber approval.

Dose and use source ↗

Dose and use links lead to primary or official source material. Search links are discovery tools, not proof that every returned paper applies.

02 / EVIDENCE

What the research says

We keep supportive, mixed, negative, safety, and contextual findings together. The headline never replaces the underlying papers.

4research papers in this ledger

3unique primary studies represented

551unique participants represented

These are audited counts for this JIVANA collection, not search-result totals. Participants are counted once when multiple papers use the same cohort; review papers are not added again to participant totals.

Open the research timelineResearch timeline

Entries are ordered by publication year. A study period appears only when the source reports it.

2025

Mixed or qualifiedPMID 40077685 · NCT02404519

Effects of One-Year Menaquinone-7 Supplementation on Vascular Stiffness and Blood Pressure in Post-Menopausal Women

Some stiffness, blood-pressure, and vascular-marker changes favored MK-7 in postmenopausal or high-stiffness subgroups. Because this was a post hoc subgroup analysis and did not assess cardiovascular events, it is hypothesis-generating rather than proof of prevention.

Published: 2025Duration: 1 yearn=165 participants

Study design and methods

Design: Post hoc subgroup analysis of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial
Population: 165 women with low vitamin K status; analyses emphasized postmenopausal and high-stiffness subgroups
Intervention: Menaquinone-7 180 μg/day or placebo
Outcome: Arterial-stiffness, blood-pressure, and vascular biomarkers

Funding or conflict note: Gnosis by Lesaffre funded the study. Several authors were employees or research collaborators, and one author reported share ownership.

Open research record ↗

2021

Does not support the tested claimPMID 33030563 · NCT01922804

Three years of vitamin K2 supplementation does not improve bone health in postmenopausal women with osteopenia

MK-7 improved osteocalcin carboxylation but did not improve bone mineral density, turnover markers, or microarchitecture versus placebo. Biomarker target engagement did not translate into measured bone benefit.

Published: 2021Duration: 3 yearsn=142 participants

Study design and methods

Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial
Population: 142 postmenopausal women with osteopenia
Intervention: Menaquinone-7 375 μg/day or placebo; both groups received calcium 800 mg and vitamin D3 38 μg/day
Outcome: Undercarboxylated osteocalcin, bone mineral density, bone-turnover markers, and bone microarchitecture

Open research record ↗

2015

Mixed or qualifiedPMID 25694037

Menaquinone-7 supplementation improves arterial stiffness in healthy postmenopausal women

Carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity and stiffness index improved overall, while several other measures improved only in a prespecified high-stiffness subgroup. dp-ucMGP fell about 50%, but inflammation and endothelial markers did not change; cardiovascular events were not tested.

Published: 2015Duration: 3 yearsn=244 participants · counted once

Study design and methods

Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled secondary publication
Population: 244 healthy postmenopausal women from the same cohort as the 2013 bone publication
Intervention: Menaquinone-7 180 μg/day or placebo
Outcome: Carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity, stiffness index, other vascular measures, dp-ucMGP, inflammation, and endothelial markers

Open research record ↗

2013

Supports a specific usePMID 23525894

Low-dose menaquinone-7 supplementation improves vitamin K status and bone health in postmenopausal women

MK-7 improved vitamin K status and attenuated age-related declines at the lumbar spine and femoral neck, but not the total hip; calculated strength and vertebral-height measures also favored MK-7. These surrogate findings did not establish fewer clinical fractures.

Published: 2013Duration: 3 yearsn=244 participants · counted once

Study design and methods

Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial
Population: 244 healthy postmenopausal women
Intervention: Menaquinone-7 180 μg/day or placebo
Outcome: Vitamin K status, bone mineral content and density, bone strength indices, and vertebral height

Open research record ↗

Unscreened discovery appendix—not evidence57 candidate publicationsSearch run: Aug 21, 2026

Complete for the displayed PubMed query at the search timestamp—not for all databases or every possible synonym. Candidates can be irrelevant, duplicate the same study, or report negative findings. They are never summed as evidence or participants until screened.

03 / SOURCES

Start with the source material

Official evidence overviewPubMed bounded human-evidence search Live PubMed discovery searchNational Library of Medicine

The live search is for discovery only. Search-result counts change and are not included in the audited totals above.

Recent PubMed discovery recordsDirect links to the first 12 records returned by the reproducible search. These are discovery candidates—not reviewed summaries or a count of supportive findings.

04 / EXPERT CONTEXT

Expert context—not evidence

Expert positions are dated context—not scientific evidence. They never raise the evidence status or become consensus by repetition.

No direct, source-verified endorsement is currently recorded. Research authorship or discussion alone is not treated as endorsement.