LONGECITY

Gather around, youthfully oriented beings and hear a truthful tale of mystery and discovery.  Once upon a time, in the twentieth century, there was a curious and clever dentist.  There had to be a reason why some less civilized tribes anthropologists call primitive or backward, had the best teeth this side of heaven.  The dentist just had to know why.  He began to travel the world, since he had somehow gotten rich enough to do so.

He cultivated the friendship of these various odd and interesting cultures on many different continents to the extent that they would let him take pictures of them pulling their cheeks away from their glistening teeth to better show them all to his magic picture box.  It was most amazing that none of them required orthodonture of any kind.  And yet, apparently the only advantage that these people had in life was that they did not live like modern, civilized, normal people with knowledge obviously unparalleled in history.

Then this clever fellow began looking at the people whose parents had left the tribe and thus led a civilized life, just like us normal people.  What do you suppose he found?  That's right!  These civilized natives now were getting cavities and deformed, overcrowded upper dental arches just like us with crooked teeth, joining the rest of us in our mandibular misery,

As he homed in on the activator whose deficiency was causing all of us advanced modern folks such a problem (and the generation of billions in profits for specialized dentists), he decided to name it.  It was still quite a mystery to him so he named it "X."  This name consigned the discovery to obscurity for a generation or so.

But it turns out, all this was not just of importance to dentistry.  Now word is beginning to spread that this same substance is pivotal in making our whole skeleton stronger.  Not only that, it will clean up the plaques of our hardening arteries, clearing the cholesterol/calcium amalgams and delivering that misplaced calcium to our bones, where it is desperately needed, from the arterial walls where it has been killing us in droves.  VITAMIN K-2.

(Oh, by the way.  Vitamin A had nothing to do with any of this.) I didn't count the dozens of times it appeared in the posts of the thread.

Even true tales need to end.  I choose this: ...and the wise, and the clever, and the true, and the good lived happily ever after.  

Someone anonymously hit the ill informed button.  I stand by the narrative, which is easily verifiable.  I invite the button pusher to be specific as to the areas of dispute.

Citing Weston Price and the nonsense he wrote as a credible source for whatever makes you deserve the "ill informed" button without any reasonable doubt...

What was the dietary source of K2 used by the less civilized tribes with nice teeth?

Got to hand it to you Dolph, anonymous button pushing is an issue that has been partly put to rest. Now let us grapple with some details, shall we? And compliments to the third party who asked the valid and useful question as to what Dr. Weston postulated were some of the possible dietary source(s) of this mystery X substance. Outstanding.

While we are at it perhaps we should also examine possible actual destructive elements in the “civilized” diet that could be contributing to the problem along with this central deficiency.

Then perhaps Dolph would be so kind as to be more specific about the “nonsense” he makes reference to. Three or more advantages to this come to mind. I won't be engaging in a monologue to end this discussion. It will continue to be an exchange of unaligned views. Some of my most valued friends and colleagues in life started out as adversaries at first contact. I won't be shutting down an independent clear thinker who has me double checking my own reasoning. Whenever I double check my own reasoning, even if I don't see reasons to change my perspective, I generally get something worthwhile out of it.

And lastly, I'll have time to eat and do my afternoon chores. I just woke up. We had a little flash flooding last night. A little nerve wracking.  

The Weston Price story is a very attractive just-so story. Unfortunately, like most just-so stories that attribute all our modern woes to one or more simple deficiencies, it is, at best, an oversimplification (and actually entirely wrong, imo). 

The fact is, we are all massively OVERnourished in every possible way today, and it is from that that most of our chronic illnesses arise.

Consider, for example: http://freetheanimal...ulletproof.html

And though I think it goes a bit overboard in blaming everything on iron specifically: 

http://freetheanimal...everything.html

Most Americans would be healthier with a simpler diet, periods of starvation (fasting), and more parasites. 

Substance can not be substituted by a pretentious writing style and lyrical waxation.

I'm all for supplementing with K2 because it is cheap, doesn't hurt, and may have some benefits. The actual evidence for any benefits other than bone health is quite scarce, however. Most of the hype around K2 is not supported by scientific research but only by the kind of storytelling Anthropositor seems so fond of.

Ok, I think I found it on the westinaprice website:

" Dr. Price discovered an additional fat-soluble nutrient, which he labeled Activator X, that is present in fish livers and shellfish, and organ meats and butter from cows eating rapidly growing green grass in the Spring and Fall. "

Substance can not be substituted by a pretentious writing style and lyrical waxation.

 

I'm all for supplementing with K2 because it is cheap, doesn't hurt, and may have some benefits. The actual evidence for any benefits other than bone health is quite scarce, however. Most of the hype around K2 is not supported by scientific research but only by the kind of storytelling Anthropositor seems so fond of.

Except it *can* hurt. At least for some people. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind it raised my blood and intraocular pressures, probably by messing up my electrolytes somehow. That resulted in permanent eye damage and heart palpitations (the palpitations may have been an underlying issue, but I never experienced them before K2; they have, however, gotten better very slowly over time). 

People can question my logic and imply I'm a hypochondriac all they want--the exact time correlation coupled with numerous similar customer complaints are all the proof I need. If you want to take the risk then it's your heart and eyes. Just don't imagine there's *no* risk any time you add an artificial nutritional concentrate to your body.

The fact is, we are all massively OVERnourished in every possible way today, and it is from that that most of our chronic illnesses arise.

You mean that people in developed nations are getting too much magnesium, zinc, vitamin K, omega 3 fatty acids, fiber and prebiotics...?  I don't think so.  We are over-nourished in sugar, fat, and omega 6 fatty acids in most cases.  Probably too much protein in some cases. 

Earlier in this thread people said K2 helps the clotting process.  That is not correct, K1 does that.  Also, why not just take K2 once a week rather than every day.  I take 10,000 iu D3 and 5mg k2 once a week and I'm happy I'm probably not hurting myself.

 

The fact is, we are all massively OVERnourished in every possible way today, and it is from that that most of our chronic illnesses arise.

 

You mean that people in developed nations are getting too much magnesium, zinc, vitamin K, omega 3 fatty acids, fiber and prebiotics...?  I don't think so.  We are over-nourished in sugar, fat, and omega 6 fatty acids in most cases.  Probably too much protein in some cases. 

 

I would agree we're not getting enough fiber, but that is technically an anti-nutrient--that is, it inhibits absorption. I would also agree about bacteria, but that is also not a nutrient per se.

The only "nutrients" I can think of most of us are deficient in today are vitamin D (really a hormone), which has nothing to do with our diet, but rather our lack of time outdoors, and B12, which has to do with treated water, no dirt, and poor gut health (i. e. not enough of the good bacteria) leading to poor absorption. So I'd agree with you about the bacteria as well.

As for magnesium, etc. it's repeated all the time that everyone is deficient in it with little evidence. More likely we just get too much sodium from all the salt in our food and that throws our other electrolytes out of balance.

Let me clarify, Most of the clotting action is with K1 and not K2.  With that in mind what I said above is not ill informed.  Someone loves to hit that button indiscriminately.

Blood clotting (coagulation) studies in humans using 45 mg per day of vitamin K₂ (as MK-4)^[27] and even up to 135 mg/day (45 mg three times daily) of K₂ (as MK-4),^[77] showed no increase in blood clot risk. Even doses in rats as high as 250 mg/kg body weight did not alter the tendency for blood-clot formation to occur.^[78]

^{https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/11886767}

^{https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/11846334}

^{There you go.}

I guess this calls for a few comments from me.

The Weston Price story is a very attractive just-so story. 

 

The fact is, we are all massively OVERnourished in every possible way today, and it is from that that most of our chronic illnesses arise.

 

Although we, as a society, are incredibly obese and unhealthy, we are not over-nourished.  We miss critical nutrients, get many in the wrong proportions, and are poisoned with an array of toxins too large to quantify, many of which were entirely unknown to nature before the twentieth century. This assault of toxins has gone on throughout our lifetimes.  We gorge on "foods" of little or no nutritive value.  Even the cleverest of us are sharing in this legacy.  If this were not so my long-shot goal to reach 125++ would be 150 years.

A capitalized THUMBS UP for you, niner!

Let me clarify, Most of the clotting action is with K1 and not K2.  With that in mind what I said above is not ill informed.  Someone loves to hit that button indiscriminately.

 

Blood clotting (coagulation) studies in humans using 45 mg per day of vitamin K₂ (as MK-4)^[27] and even up to 135 mg/day (45 mg three times daily) of K₂ (as MK-4),^[77] showed no increase in blood clot risk. Even doses in rats as high as 250 mg/kg body weight did not alter the tendency for blood-clot formation to occur.^[78]

I don't like the point-n-click insult buttons, and have recommended they be changed.

Vitamin K is necessary for adequate blood clotting, but excess K does not result in excess blood clotting.  It's nice to have evidence of this, but mechanistically it's been understood for quite some time.  This is typical of all micronutrients-- A deficiency of something causes a particular symptom, but a surplus of the same micronutrient does not cause the opposite of the deficiency symptom.  In some cases, an excess of a micronutrient may cause specific toxicity, but the symptoms of toxicity are not likely to be related to symptoms of deficiency.

Anthropositor,

Believe whatever makes you happy. I bet you have hours of internet research to back it up. I honestly have no interest in this forum anymore because most of what's talked about will, if anything, shorten your lifespan. True life extension is not yet a reality--not at all. In the meantime, the best methods are simple and natural and don't come in a bottle of any kind. 

Trying to micromanage the ratios of nutrients and chasing after all the supposed "deficiencies" I had with pills lead me to waste a lot of money and harm myself. The only reason I'm here is to warn others about the dangers of this type of thinking. 

Young fellow,

I do my best not to believe what makes me happy, but rather to embrace what is reasonable as well as I am able.  No one has the inside track on the truth.  Our mistakes are many.  Our triumphs few.  We are subject to harm anytime we experiment with ourselves.  When we think we have sufficient information, we are much more likely wrong than right.

I do strive to be happy as much of the time as I can.  Like life, even this objective is achieved replete with setbacks, false starts and detours.  On the whole, I do tend to believe that I am generally happier than the next person.  That does not give me a sense of accomplishment or contentment, because the next person is sometimes incredibly miserable, and I would be happier still if the misery of the world were substantially reduced.

That is unlikely to happen.  There are certain realities we must face.  In my span of life our species has multiplied by 3.5.  Our climate is increasingly out of whack.  We are in an unprecedented runaway extinction event and we jabber at each other much of the time about nonsense.

War was spreading like wildfire when I was born.  My childhood games were war, cowboys and Indians (war), cops and robbers (war).  There has not been a time without it.  Now, at any given time, fifty big wars are going on.  Corpses stacked like cord-wood.  Refugees by the millions.  No end in sight.

We have the illusions of war so deeply ingrained that we do not notice the lie embedded in the question, "Who won the war?"  The correct answer is, no one.  And no one has ever given me that answer.  When I was in my early twenties we came within a hydrogen nucleus of world annihilation.  Most of you here today would never have come into existence with only the slightest change in events.  This was the very first time (virtually the first year) in the history of the world that mankind had the capability to destroy our entire habitat ourselves, and we almost did it that very year.  

I talk to college kids all the time who are essentially almost completely historically illiterate.  How many of you know what I am saying is true, without mousing to a convenient search engine?  (No link Provided).

Half a decade later, I was proud to be part of the effort to be the first generation to put some of our own members on a neighboring planet.  Think of that!  Then we bumbled, and we have been bumbling ever since.  We trashed orbital space to such an extent that a time rapidly approaches when our future forays will always have to take into account high energy collisions with our own trash.  The brightest and best of our planets' engineers couldn't plan their way around that accumulation of hypersupersonically whizzing crap.

In the last forty-five years we could have put a permanent installation on the Moon, colonies at L-5, mined many of the Earth-approaching asteroids for the entire platinum family of metals, as well as other strategic resources, and prepared for a much more ambitious project to reap the forbidding and challenging rewards of Mars.  And we could have made each step pay for the next.

Space represents an absolutely inexhaustible source of energy.  Unlimited!  Instead we frack and prepare to trash our planet mining tar-sands, a filthy, expensive, incredibly polluting source of energy, a dead end in every sense of the word.  

Instead of coming to grips with issues like this, we spend much of our time dithering and bickering over nonsense.

I notice that (almost) none of you admit your age in your information here.  Why not?  This is a lot bigger question than it looks.  Anyone care to speculate?   Why do so few care to divulge your age?  

Any Centenarians here?  Anyone in their nineties?  Eighties?  I can't be the oldest one here!  This is a longevity forum. 

I have taken vitamin K2 MK4 around 100mcg for 3 days and today I woke up with pain in my left eye. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

4 times i have tried taking MK7, in just about 3 to 4 days max, it makes my carpal tunnel MUCH worse, my theory is that it try to carry calcium but it cant since the blood flow is obstructed? what do you think guys could this be the issue?

4 times i have tried taking MK7, in just about 3 to 4 days max, it makes my carpal tunnel MUCH worse, my theory is that it try to carry calcium but it cant since the blood flow is obstructed? what do you think guys could this be the issue?

Vitamin K2 seems to be inflammatory, it causes inflammation of tissues. But it's very weird since it seems to happen under specific circumstances. The people at Phoenixrising have tried to figure out why.
 

The amount of bullshit on this board can really be overwhelming... Nocebo is a word nobody seems to have heard here.

Either vitamin K2 MK7 gave me a blood clot in my left lung or it caused inflammation, because I was in pain when breathing on my left lung after taking MK7 and it lasted for just over 2 days. There are data that suggests that vitamin K2 is inflammatory (several vitamins are inflammatory) but it's not conclusive.

Stop with the "placebo" crap though. You have no idea what you are talking about, it's just a sad attempt at rejecting a person's experiences because you either don't like the idea that your favorite substance has negative effects (cannabis consumers) or you are too lazy minded to account for the experience, or something else.

Vitamin K2 has several undesirable effects that you can read about if you search the Internet. Just like omega fatty acids and so many other vitamins and micronutrients.

Substance can not be substituted by a pretentious writing style and lyrical waxation.

 

I'm all for supplementing with K2 because it is cheap, doesn't hurt, and may have some benefits. The actual evidence for any benefits other than bone health is quite scarce, however. Most of the hype around K2 is not supported by scientific research but only by the kind of storytelling Anthropositor seems so fond of.

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3161300/

To summarize, we have demonstrated for the first time that vitamin K2 supplementation for 4 weeks increased insulin sensitivity in healthy young men, which seems to be related to increased cOC rather than modulation of inflammation.

I want to be clear, i never said it was MK7 for sure, but 3 times when i started it, i had the same reaction, i'm not sure since it suppose to do exactly the opposite. Around week after stopping using it, and used tocotrienols my CT was much better.

The only thing I know is unusual about my case is low-ish platelets due to higher-than-average platelet destruction. I've had this ever since taking accutane for a few months about ten years ago (as I think accutane is like a mega-dose of fat-soluble vitamin A, it might have screwed up my processing of fat-soluble vitamins more generally). I am going to see a hematologist this week, so I may learn more details. I wonder if there is a correlation between accutane users and a bad reaction to vitamin K?

It is possible the eye thing was a coincidence, given that I have pretty high myopia and am therefore predisposed to this kind of thing, though I don't think it was a true coincidence. I'm quite sure the blood pressure and other vascular symptoms were not a coincidence.

 

Want to add my 2 cents as I just had a strange reaction to k2 mk4.  I also took accutane in the past with lingering side effects.  I was on 1 drop of mk4 for a couple weeks recently.  My skin was looking amazing and also got energy from it.  I took it along with 10k IU of vitamin D sometimes.  Vitamin D alone also gave me energy, but felt weird when combined with K2.  For some unknown reason, I upped my dose to a full dropper, once, one month ago and developed fatigue, lethargy, weakness, floaters, shortness of breath, tightness in chest/maybe chest pain.  The symptoms have lingered.  Donated blood around this time and felt much worse.  Cut my finger the other day and bled like crazy.  Have nattokinase on hand and makes me feel a little better so I suspected blood clot to lungs perhaps or dvt.  Doctor ordered venous doppler in legs for DVT which just came back normal.  Doesn't rule out other clotting phenomenon though.  Chest x-ray also normal.  Haven't tried taking more k2 but vitamin D or magnesium doesn't help.

I think using accutane in the past explains this strange reaction to K2.  Fatigue has been a problem for me since accutane but never as bad as it is now.  I've been feeling pretty wiped out since my stupid k2 megadose.  More is not always better ladies and gents.

Want to add my 2 cents as I just had a strange reaction to k2 mk4.  I also took accutane in the past with lingering side effects.  I was on 1 drop of mk4 for a couple weeks recently.  My skin was looking amazing and also got energy from it.  I took it along with 10k IU of vitamin D sometimes.  Vitamin D alone also gave me energy, but felt weird when combined with K2.  For some unknown reason, I upped my dose to a full dropper, once, one month ago and developed fatigue, lethargy, weakness, floaters, shortness of breath, tightness in chest/maybe chest pain.  The symptoms have lingered.  Donated blood around this time and felt much worse.  Cut my finger the other day and bled like crazy.  Have nattokinase on hand and makes me feel a little better so I suspected blood clot to lungs perhaps or dvt.  Doctor ordered venous doppler in legs for DVT which just came back normal.  Doesn't rule out other clotting phenomenon though.  Chest x-ray also normal.  Haven't tried taking more k2 but vitamin D or magnesium doesn't help.

 

I think using accutane in the past explains this strange reaction to K2.  Fatigue has been a problem for me since accutane but never as bad as it is now.  I've been feeling pretty wiped out since my stupid k2 megadose.  More is not always better ladies and gents.

 

Very interesting how you had the same chest symptoms as I did, though I didn't get an X-ray done or anything else.

Someone mentioned that vitamin K2 may cause inflammation and I believe it to be true, but it is pro-coagulatory in spite what people say so it could in fact be a minor clot somewhere.

Want to add my 2 cents as I just had a strange reaction to k2 mk4.  I also took accutane in the past with lingering side effects.  I was on 1 drop of mk4 for a couple weeks recently.  My skin was looking amazing and also got energy from it.  I took it along with 10k IU of vitamin D sometimes.  Vitamin D alone also gave me energy, but felt weird when combined with K2.  For some unknown reason, I upped my dose to a full dropper, once, one month ago and developed fatigue, lethargy, weakness, floaters, shortness of breath, tightness in chest/maybe chest pain.  The symptoms have lingered.  Donated blood around this time and felt much worse.  Cut my finger the other day and bled like crazy.  Have nattokinase on hand and makes me feel a little better so I suspected blood clot to lungs perhaps or dvt.  Doctor ordered venous doppler in legs for DVT which just came back normal.  Doesn't rule out other clotting phenomenon though.  Chest x-ray also normal.  Haven't tried taking more k2 but vitamin D or magnesium doesn't help.

 

 

 

I think using accutane in the past explains this strange reaction to K2.  Fatigue has been a problem for me since accutane but never as bad as it is now.  I've been feeling pretty wiped out since my stupid k2 megadose.  More is not always better ladies and gents.

 

Vitamin D at 10K IU? That seems high. I had problems with vitamin D at 2k. The most obvious problem I get is extreme pain in joint area - which is indicative of calcification of/around the tissue. Clearly, for me, vitamin D3 has been toxic at 2k. If I had internal damages, I wouldn't know - since I didn't do blood work.

What was your dosage of mk4? I have had no ill effects from K2 (mk4) even at 40 mg. With Vitamin K2 supplementation, my wounds heal faster, and blood clots better - this effect is well known.

To sum it up, what you have been experiencing does not appear to be associated with vitamin k2.

I think 10K Vitamin D3 per day is OK. After a year my blood level was high but nowhere near toxicity.

I have similar concerns about blood clotting. And I have stupidly repeated the "experiment" about 5 times over the past 4 years without really realising that K2 might be the problem. It very quickly gives me a feeling of getting blood clots. My worst symptoms the past 2 years are increased thirst, intolerance for alkaline stuff, and some swollen veins. Can it be reversed?

Any mechanistic ideas as to why this happens? It's either due to genetics or the physiological environment is some people... or both. Maybe we should look into how the clotting system works and what physiological/hormonal states cause it to be pushed into the pro-clotting direction?