You Can’t Fool Mother Nature – Building Bones Not Clogged Arteries

Feb 15, 2013

Once again, nature provided just what we needed in the way we needed it when we didn’t interfere. Case in point: Turns out that when animals graze, the vitamins A, D and K (so necessary to bone building) are in the forms we need, in the amounts we need and in the combinations we need all in one place.

But, did you also know that Vitamin K comes in different varieties? There is K1 (Phylloquinone), which we think of as the clotting vitamin and look for in green plants. Another form (K2 – Menaquinone) is found in whole eggs, cultured dairy and meat of grazing animals as well as in fermented vegetables and soy (natto). K2, which humans have extremely limited capacity to make, has nothing to do with clotting, but activates two important proteins involved in where your body directs your dietary calcium. One protein that K2 activates, Osteocalcin, directs dietary calcium into bones. Another, MGLA (matrix GLA protein), sweeps calcium out of soft tissues like arteries linings (in the form of plaque) or kidneys (in the form of stones) or breast tissue (in the form of calcifications). Osteocalcin also helps the pancreas to make more insulin as well as increasing tissue sensitivity to insulin – two really helpful things in this scary world of ever increasing diabetes.

Here in the US, we lot feed cows food that their digestive system was not designed to process (primarily corn) for the purpose of fattening them up (this is a clue in and of itself). This, along with the close quarters in which they are forced to live, creates a need to keep them on lifetime antibiotics to prevent infections. Just like with humans, antibiotics play havoc with gut bacteria of cows, upsetting the natural balance and killing off many of the good bugs that do important things like make K2. Courtesy of Dannon, most of us are now familiar with the need to supplement with probiotics to maintain the gut flora when on an antibiotic.

While these important nutrients (Vitamins A, D and K) are available in supplement form, nature has this miraculous way of putting in everything we need to get the job done, even we don’t even fully understand what everything we need would be. For more information on the multitude of benefits of eating grassfed beef, click here.