Januari 23, 2017
dave: hey, everyone. it’s dave asprey withthe bulletproof executive, funny enough, also with bulletproof executive radio, the number-oneranked podcast on itunes in the health category. today’s cool fact of the day is natto, whichis a traditional japanese food made from fermented soybeans with a bacterial starter. it hasa really musty flavor, and it smells like ammonia or like the other thing that smellslike ammonia, which is pee. all the other fermented foods that you might eat that aremade out of soy … things like miso, and tempeh, and tofu … use yeast or mold asthe ferment substance. natto is cool because it specifically usesbacteria which create these spider web sticky substance things made out of glutamic acidpolymers, which can stretch up to eight feet
long. the longer the stretchiness of the threads,the better the quality of the natto. that’s a cool fact of the day. also, if you’venever eaten natto, it is really like eating boogers. it’s gross, but it’s good foryou, because it contains nattokinase. i’m really excited about today’s guest.today’s guest is dr. kate rhã©aume-bleue. kate, did i say that right?dr. kate: perfect, yeah. dave: cool.dr. kate: that’s why i go with dr. kate. dave: all right, this is dr. kate. she’son today to talk about one of my favorite vitamins, something that you’ve read aboutif you look at my top ten vitamin list on the bulletproof exec site, because she knowsabout vitamin k2. she wrote this book called
vitamin k2 and the calcium paradox: how alittle-known vitamin could save your life. she’s also a naturopath, at least a graduateof a college of naturopathic medicine, and has worked with a supplement company callednatural factors nutritional products as an educational spokesperson. dr. kate, welcometo the show. dr. kate: thanks, dave.dave: all right. why did you write a book on k2? what led you to do that?dr. kate: lots of reasons. partly because i had read weston price’s nutrition andphysical degeneration, which was so interesting to me. a few months after that, maybe aboutsix months later, i started to find articles … this was back in 2007 … on vitamin k2.i thought this nutrient was so fascinating,
had so many interesting health benefits, eventhough it was still early days of research, and it still is. went running back to price’sbook to find out … because i was sure that he had talked about it, and went through thewhole book and found nothing about vitamin k2, or so i thought, in that book. it reallyconfused me. anyway, i was still interested in k2. a couplemonths later, amazing article came out by chris masterjohn linking price’s work withactivator x to vitamin k2. from that point, i was really hooked, because i knew therewas such an interesting story, a traditional story, lots of research, as well as new scientificevidence, modern studies. also around that time, the research was comingout looking at the problems with calcium supplements
and calcium supplements causing increasedrisk of heart attack and stroke. that was so confusing, and it still is for people.that’s because just looking at calcium and trying to figure out if it’s safe or not,we’ll never come to a good conclusion to that. really, we need to be finding out howcan the body safely utilize calcium, because we’ve always had to deal with calcium inour bodies and get it to the right places. that’s what vitamin k2 does. there werelots of reasons i felt like it was an important story that needed to be told around this overlookednutrient. dave: chris masterjohn has been a guest onbulletproof executive radio, and he’s such a fountain of knowledge. he’s a guy i really,really respect. it’s really cool how he
called this out in the early days. it’sawesome that he was an inspiration to you, as well. i’ve been telling people for quitea while, based on all the anti-aging research i’ve done with the silicon valley healthinstitute in palo alto, where i’m chairman, it’s like, “hey, maybe you ought not tobe over-supplementing calcium, especially if you are not taking magnesium and potassium,and things like that.†in fact, the only kind of calcium i really recommend is calciumaep or calcium d-glucarate for most people, unless they have a need for extra calcium.what is the calcium paradox from your perspective there? because the anti-aging guys i knoware mostly like, “you don’t want too much of that stuff.†they could be wrong, andit is multi-factorial. this darn complex system
of the body, you can’t just test one vitaminat a time and expect to get good results, just like you can’t bake a loaf of breadby cooking the yeast first and then cooking the water. you got to mix them. how does allthis work? what’s the paradox? dr. kate: there’s two things there. theparadox, for me, is this situation which so many people find themselves in, in which weabsolutely need calcium in our bodies. we especially need it in our bones and our teeth,and that’s exactly where it tends to be lacking. people are prone to osteoporosisand dental cavities, so that is the minerals leaching out of the areas where they shouldbe and leaving behind little holes, whether it’s porous bones or a hole in your tooth.then the flip side of that is in the very
same people, or in the population at large,we see a buildup of calcium in places where it shouldn’t be, in places where you don’twant it to be, like arteries, and kidney stones, and heel spurs, and breast tissue calcification,and heart valves, and carotids, all kinds of areas. there we have this paradoxical situationof needing calcium, but it can be dangerous if it gets in the wrong places.that’s really vitamin k2’s role, is to keep calcium in its place at all times. itsounds incredible that you can boost your bone health and reverse heart disease andall that kind of thing, but it makes sense that the body does have a way of dealing withthis if it has the right nutrients to deal with that. you’re right. in general, wecan’t look at any individual nutrient and
really pinpoint … because all of the nutrientswork together, we can’t really pinpoint the action of one away from the others.vitamin k2 is different and unique in that aspect, because we have warfarin, which isa drug that artificially reduces your levels of vitamin k and vitamin k only. because ofthat, it provides a unique example that we don’t have for any other kind of nutrient,to see exactly what happens in the body when we’re deficient in vitamin k. what happensthere is inappropriate calcification. we see calcium leaching out of the bones and buildingup in soft tissues. dave: i don’t know if this is … i justdon’t remember if this is in your book. have you written about free oxalate, or oxalicacid or oxalates in the body, and free calcium?
what’s your take on that?dr. kate: that is a conundrum. i haven’t written about that in the book. there areso many things that you can write about, especially when you start talking about calcium. i dotouch on magnesium. that’s not an issue i have addressed, and it’s one i actuallystill struggle with. of course, green leafies being very important, and yet they also havethis double-edged sword issue. dave: let me ask you more about that. there’sa comedian guy named joe rogan who’s been talking about doing these kale smoothies,like raw kale in the morning. to just offer some value to his listeners when i went onrecently, i looked at all the research here and … if you cook kale and you choose theright species of kale, you can get a lot less
oxalic acid. oxalic acid, when it binds tocalcium inside muscles or inside, say, the vagina, where it’s a particular problemin women, or other places, it causes weakness and pain and all. i said, “maybe you shouldadd the calcium when you’re cooking it, so that you can precipitate out the oxalicacid using calcium instead of allowing the calcium in your body to do it.†what’syour take on that idea? dr. kate: i think that speaks to the traditionof serving foods like those … green, leafy vegetables, swiss chard, kale, all of thosethings … first of all, not raw, always cooked, always with some sort of a fat … which doesall kinds of things … but typically with some sort of cheese, like spinach and cheeseand this kind of thing. that introduces both
some calcium as well as some fat. aside fromthe fact that these things taste good, i think there was some traditional wisdom in preparingfoods that way. i’m not a fan of raw kale. i avoid the whole kale caesar salad, eventhe kale chips. i just don’t think it’s a good idea to be eating those things in largequantities raw. they just should be cooked. dave: you heard it here first from a naturopath.my research, my time as a raw vegan, taught me that, as well. when you do the research,you dig in, there’s a reason that animals don’t eat these raw leafy greens. try andgive raw kale to a horse, and it will look at you like you’re dumber than a horse,because they won’t eat it. there’s a reason they don’t eat it. it’s not because theydidn’t want their vitamin k. it’s because
it needs cooking. it has toxins that are stillactive, and they particularly hit you in the kidneys, because that’s where you’re goingto catch most of it. dr. kate: these are, in one sense, the plants’ways of protecting themselves from being consumed. humans, we found ways of getting around that.there’s compelling evidence to suggest that we evolved exactly for that reason, becausewe learned to adapt and cook certain foods, and get nutrition out of them that other speciescouldn’t. then we’re better off for it. dave: i would agree with you there, and ididn’t used to. i used to be all into, “it’s the enzymes. you got to eat everything raw.â€i lost weight, and i felt really good, and then i started to get sicker and sicker becausenutrition’s important. now, i don’t eat
any leafy green without a lot of fat. i cookall of them. even, honestly, when i do really intense things, i would rather saut㩠greenlettuce in butter than eat … like the dark green … than just eat it raw.dr. kate: yeah, and it’s just a traditional part of fine cuisine to prepare things thatway. there’s a reason for it. it’s such a familiar story. i know people turn to vegandiets for very good reasons, good intentions, health reasons and others, ethical reasons.it just doesn’t seem to be in our biology. it’s such a common story. feel great atfirst, and then health deteriorates. a lot of people are finding out about vitamin k2in my book through that exact reason, and then finding, in particular, they’ve gotproblems with their dental health. that is
leading them down a very different path withtheir food intake. dave: it’s funny. as a raw vegan, i startedgetting this severe temperature sensitivity and tooth pain. i even split a tooth downthe middle. i hear this. there’s a lot of recovering raw vegans who come to the bulletproofforums. i know a few people who have been vegetarian and healthy for into their 60s,but the vegan thing, especially people who have been doing it for 20-plus years, there’svery, very few of them. the few of them that i know aren’t as healthy as i think theymight possibly be if they included at least some animal … like dairy fat or something.what’s the role of that dairy fat when you’re talking about vitamin k2, calcium, and dairyfat? how do those come together?
dr. kate: k2 is a fat-soluble nutrient, soyou absolutely do need to get this in foods that have fat in them. even looking at grass-fedfoods, grass-fed meat, for example, is great, but it tends to be very lean, so you’renot going to get a lot of vitamin k2 in grass-fed meat. it’s the fat of the animals … dairy,butter, organ meats … that’s where you’ll find the k2.k2 specifically, when we’re talking about tooth sensitivity, i’ve become fairly convincedthat that is specifically a k2 deficiency symptom. it’s so common, tooth sensitivity.you see the ads for sensitive toothpaste all the time. that is something i used to have.completely cleared up after i increased my k2 intake. oral health improvements and oralis a common feedback that you get when you
increase their k2 intake, and that tooth sensitivity’sspecifically one of them. these nutrients are designed to come all together.you have a food that’s high in calcium, like cheese or milk, and mother nature protectsyour body from the ill effects of that by providing you with some vitamin k2 in thatfood to make sure the calcium doesn’t get into the wrong places. it just all fits.dave: wow. that is really, really cool. are you familiar with the role of mold toxinsor mycotoxins in health? is that an area we can discuss? i haven’t seen that in yourbook, but … dr. kate: i know a little bit about it, buti can’t say it’s an area of expertise for me.dave: okay. i’m interested specifically
around k2 and its effect on mitigating certainmycotoxins, because one of the other things i’ve noticed is that certain tooth sensitivity,especially around temperature and around inflammation at the root of the tooth, is, even on a day-day-tobasis, influenced partly by intake of mycotoxins in the diet or exposure in the environment.i recently had a few experts on from that. i’m wondering what the k2-mycotoxin interplayis, but i know that’s a weird technical question.dr. kate: now that you’ve explained that, i can say that certainly price’s work showedthat k2 has some antimicrobial properties, specifically in the mouth. he specificallyshowed that by increasing … or when he used activator x concentrates, that it would lowerthe bacterial count in the mouth. he was only
looking at bacteria. he wasn’t looking atother micro-organisms, but i wouldn’t be surprised, given all the benefits it has forthe health of the mouth, if that’s not also one of the things that it’s doing. in additionto lowering bacterial count, maybe it’s also killing other micro-organisms.dave: all right. is activator x related to professor x from x-men? because i’m surehoping. i’m kidding. tell the people who are listening who probably haven’t heardabout activator x, if they’re not in the fermented cod liver oil/butter oil crowd,what is activator x? how does it relate to calcium and k2?dr. kate: sure. activator x is the nutrient … when weston price traveled around theworld and found people all over the world
who were very healthy … beautiful, perfect,straight, white, healthy teeth that didn’t get cavities, even though, shockingly, theydidn’t brush and floss. they didn’t have dentists. they were able to maintain thishealth with good diets … he found that although people ate lots of different types of things… what they actually ate in their diets varied widely … that all their diets providedhigh levels of vitamins and minerals, but particularly fat-soluble vitamins.he saw very high levels of vitamins a and d, as well as high levels of another fat-solublevitamin that he didn’t know what it was. to his knowledge, it hadn’t been identifiedyet. this was back in the 1930s, ‘20s and ‘30s. he just called it x, activator x.he referred to the fat-soluble vitamins as
activators in a similar way that nowadays,we refer to vitamins a and d as hormones, because we know that those will actually activateour dna to allow us to benefit from and utilize the other nutrients, other vitamins and minerals,in our diet. he started to do a lot of focus on activatorx, because he knew it often came along with the other fat-soluble vitamins a and d, buthe didn’t know what its properties were. it turns out he found it very useful in conjunctionwith vitamins a and d for healing dental cavities. being a dentist, that was a focus of his.he actually stopped drilling and filling teeth, and in fact replaced that almost entirelywith a nutritional protocol, and published radiographs before and after of mouths fullof open cavities that completely sealed over.
it’s actually possible for your teeth toheal up. they’re designed to do that, if they have the right nutrients.he found that this activator x was particularly high in certain foods. he’s identified whichfoods it was high in, and a concentrate of grass-fed butter was the highest food thathe could find for this activator x. again, for ages, it was a mystery and a subject ofdebate in the medical and nutritional world, what is activator x? it really was only whenchris masterjohn’s article brought it together that brought that to the forefront. pricewas onto this so long ago, if not the name of the vitamin, at least its properties. henoticed it healed teeth. he had radiographs of it healing bones. if he’d had accessto a cat scan, he would have seen some arteries
clearing up, too.dave: one of the things i’m best known for is creating this drink after i went to tibetand drank yak butter tea. talk about a nutrition-deficient environment. these guys, they live on yakbutter tea and ground-up barley flour that they mix with their fingers, and they’restronger than i am and half my weight. just amazing supermen. it’s not just the grass-fed… or, i guess, lichen-fed yak butter, but it’s similar substance. they’re in probablythe harshest environment i can think of for that sort of nutritional intake, and theymanage to survive with it. i came back to the states, and i made bulletproofcoffee, after a year of iterating different things, which includes grass-fed butter asa substantial part of it. i’ve been really
privileged a couple times to see vegans decidingto try bulletproof coffee for the first time … for the first time since, at least, ina long time, since they’ve had any type of protein from dairy. literally, you seealmost a shaking of their hands. they’re like, “i need it.†you can see the biological,“give me some more of that.†you’re thinking that the vegan diet causeda k2 deficiency, or it contributes to one, anyway. then when people get a grass-fed buttersource, that it’s contributing k2. i know animals and babies will pick out healthy foodswhen you give them a choice. they’ll eat non-gmo corn before they’ll touch the gmocorn. i feel like even as adults, our bodies sense there’s a craving that’s a negativecraving, but there’s also, “give me some
of that,†mostly pregnant women. is k2 whatwe’re craving in butter? or, is it also the saturated fat, or is it conjugated linoleicacid, is it something else, or are you not sure?dr. kate: it may be all of those. that craving for fat is very deep, and on some level, i’msure the body knows that there are specific nutrients that usually go along with it. inthe modern world, we can be duped by that, because we can be craving the fat, and thenutrients aren’t always there, depending on, for example, how the butter’s produced.i think that in general, the body knows, or it used to know, that when you got good fat,there’d be a lot of good stuff and good nutrients that went along with it.dave: got it. that could be some of what we’re
craving. weston a. price and pottenger, whenthey wrote their book, when they were putting together this butter oil thing, is butteroil different from ghee? for people listening who don’t know about ghee … ghee, g-h-e-e… is clarified butter, basically. you cook the butter until the moisture and all theprotein falls out, and all that’s left is just the fat. butter oil, is that a differentthing than ghee, in your opinion or your knowledge? dr. kate: in my opinion, not really. basedon reading price’s work, and the steps he took to create his butter oil is almost identical,very, very similar to how ghee is prepared. you get the butter. you heat it at low temperaturesto separate out the proteins, which is the milk solids, and you have left behind purefat, which is a very concentrated form of
the fat-soluble vitamins. it would be verysimilar to the yak butter that you had, which i imagine was quite an orange color.dave: oh yeah. dr. kate: that’s typically a sign, if somethingis a darker yellow or an orange color, a sign that there is more k2 in it. it’s not thek2 that’s orange, but it’s the beta-carotene and k2. they tend to travel together. fromthe research i’ve done on modern-day butter oil as well as price’s methods of makingbutter oil and ghee, they are close enough, in my mind, that you can use these interchangeably.dave: that’s remarkable. i’ve used ghee to make bulletproof coffee, particularly wheni’m working with clients who are sensitive to dairy proteins or if they’re gettinga little bit of postnasal drip. then they
switch to ghee, and you get less foam in thecoffee, but you still get all that fat. the body just responds so nicely when it’s blendedinto a hot substance like that. to get the foam back, i add in another product that imake called upgraded collagen. it’s a hydrolyzed source of grass-fed beef collagen, which bringsthe foam back. you can still get this, but instead of the little bit of dairy proteincausing the foam, you’re getting a little bit of beef skin protein, the kind that yourbody needed anyway. it’s really different how people respondwhen it’s blended versus not blended. do you have any info in your research about,does k2 work better when you chew it up or mix it with fat in some sort of blending process?or, am i just going out on a limb here?
dr. kate: in nature, k2 would be naturallyfound in a matrix of fat, whether it’s in butter or cheese. it would already be likethat. in your process of making the coffee that way, you are emulsifying the fat. that,of course, is going to make it absorbed that much butter and likely deliver the nutrientsin it that much more efficiently. dave: how heat stable is vitamin k2?dr. kate: it’s quite heat stable, actually. that’s pretty good news. studies have beendone looking at, say, calf’s liver, which is a moderate source of k2, either raw orpan-fried. the amount of k2 barely changes. i don’t have any concerns about low heat.maybe high-heat cooking will reduce it somewhat, but from what we can tell, it’s pretty heatstable.
dave: wow. you’ve just informed tomorrowmorning’s biohacking experiment. i take vitamin k2 every day. i’m going to dumpit into the blender as i’m making my bulletproof coffee, and then i’m going to give it tomy kids. i’ll take it, too, myself. they get about two tablespoons of bulletproof coffeein the morning, because i want them to get the short-chain, medium-chain triglyceridesand to get the grass-fed butter. plus, they just like it. they metabolize caffeine very,very fast compared to adults, so it’s not like i’m getting them all amped up on anything.dr. kate: i’m sure their teachers really appreciate that.dave: i drop them off … no. they don’t get hyper from it. they just feel good. idefinitely did my research before i did that.
it’s shown that caffeine and coffee do notstunt growth in children. that was a rumor spread by one of the cereal companies tryingto get you to drink burnt cereal acrylamide brew instead of coffee. i’m convinced i’mhelping my kids with that. to get them the extra k2 like that, i’m going to do it.does k2 have a bad taste? butyric acid tastes like sweat socks. what does k2 taste like?dr. kate: it has no particular flavor. as a matter of fact, i give my little ones … theolder one, from when he was two and a half, my younger ones, a year and a half. they justchew the little k2 softgels, and they have no problem with it at all.dave: okay, great. it’s an easy thing to do. how much k2 do you give your kids?dr. kate: i’m giving them about 120 micrograms
per day. that is close to the adult dose thati do talk about in my book. i’ve actually increased my recommendations on k2 intakesince i put the book out. the reason why i have recommended, and still do, at least 120micrograms for kids is, first of all, it’s nontoxic. secondly, although we tend to thinkof children needing less … their bodies are smaller, so they need less … the exceptionhere is that even though their bodies are smaller, their bodies are growing.when your body’s growing, your skeleton’s growing, that is time for a huge demand forvitamin k2. the reason why kids and adolescents tend to get more cavities than adults is specificallybecause their skeletons are growing. they need more nutrients. i don’t hold back onthe k2, so 120 micrograms. that’s even for
my 18-month-old. as the older one gets intothe teen years, i’ll probably double that up.dave: i keep a list on the bulletproof executive site around the top ten list of supplements.i have vitamin k2 on there. from the top of my mind, i’m not remembering exactly whatmy recommended dose is. i get the recommended doses from experts. i will update my recommendationsbased on what you’re saying, because you’ve done a lot of research about this. for adults,is it weight dependent? i’m around, i’m guessing, 220, because i’ve recently puton some muscle with electricity. if i weigh 220 pounds, what’s my dose, versus if i’ma 100-pound woman? dr. kate: we don’t know exactly. there aren’tstudies to look at, say, optimal dosing. i
imagine that, for sure, body weight does makea difference, because you’ve got more tissue, more muscle mass, more bones, more everything.you’re going to have more nutritional requirements there. the rule of thumb that i’m using… when i wrote the book, i was going by the studies. most of the studies were usingand still are using about 180 micrograms of mk-7. we can get into the different formsof k2 that are out there in supplements. if you were eating one serving of natto per day,you’d be getting about 350 to 400 micrograms. i’m using that as my new guideline for nutritionalintake. for somebody who is eating one serving of natto per day, they’d be getting about350 to 400 micrograms of k2. dave: now people know why that was my coolfact of the day, because it’s one of the
highest natural sources of k2. do you eatit, by the way? do you like it? dr. kate: i still try to eat it, yeah. youknow what, i have come to … maybe this is just to make myself feel better, but … i’vebecome convinced that natto is like cilantro. you’ll love it, or you hate it. i love cilantro.there’s got to be some kind of genetic component there in terms of your taste buds, becausei have met so many people who have tried natto and have said, “actually, that’s not bad,â€or, “actually, that’s pretty good.†i spoke at the weston price conference lastfall, and i had a friend, a host of the biodynamics now podcast, alan balliett, who organizeda natto tasting. there were a number of people who emailed me to say, “hey, we actuallyliked the natto. where can you get it,â€
or who tasted it and commented, “it waspretty good.†i still struggle with it. i try to eat it because i know it’s goodfor me, but, yeah, it’s a tough one. dave: my wife, dr. lana, loves the stuff,but she’s from sweden. they eat spoiled fish as a sport, so i don’t always trusther desire to eat strange foods, like salmon eggs, which also are one of those superfoodsthat weston a. price would have … i take them like capsules, because i know they’regood for me, but she and my kids, they’ll eat a bowl of them, if possible. i feel likei’m eating pimples. i just can’t do it. is there any animal source, besides a littlebit of fat in grass-fed beef … because like you said, it’s often lean … and grass-feddairy, which is my favorite source, with the
whole putting butter in everything … whatare some other, besides natto? mushrooms? i’m just guessing there. are there othersources people can target? a little bit of kale, if you cook it?dr. kate: no, no kale. no green, leafy vegetables. there’s no k2 in your green, leafy vegetables,only vitamin k1. there’s very little conversion of k1 to k2. studies have shown, for peopleeating lots of green leafies, you’re converting maybe five percent of that, and you’re notabsorbing very much of that, either. you can’t rely on that. other sources of k2 … natto’sthe highest-known food for vitamin k2. next after that is goose liver, which is also,as delicious as it is, very hard to come by and not necessarily something we can eat ona daily basis.
dave: is it grass-fed geese? not really, butdoes it matter if you feed the goose a bunch of mycotoxin-laden corn from gmo sources ornot? dr. kate: i don’t think that actually affectsthe k2 content. dave: it doesn’t? okay.dr. kate: of course, there’s other concerns there, as well. they just tested standardgoose liver produced in a standard way. dave: okay. then it was with chemical foods,and they still produced k2. that’s good. dr. kate: yeah. there’s a lot more testingto be done, because i’m sure that there are a lot more foods out there that are highin k2 than we know of. the next ones on the list are certain types of cheeses. k2 in naturewill come from some types of bacterial fermentation,
like the natto. goose livers is naturallyoccurring. even goose leg and, i’m convinced, goose fat is also high, although it hasn’tbeen tested, because the rest of the goose is high. i use a lot of goose fat in cookingaround the house. the next after that would be certain typesof cheeses. although grass-fed cheese would be the best, it actually doesn’t have tobe grass-fed milk to make the k2, because it’s the bacteria that makes the k2. goudaand brie top the list. new research since i wrote the book suggests that some typesof blue cheeses but not all. gouda and brie are always made with the same bacteria, whereasblue cheese, it varies quite a bit. there’s lots of different types.dave: there’s a lot of fungal stuff going
on in blue cheese, like roquefortisine isa known toxin in blue cheese, which is why it’s called roquefort. gouda and brie wouldbe preferable. for people on the bulletproof diet, there’s a little bit of casein andthere’s some other problems from the fermentation process where i’m a little skeptical that’syour best source compared to natto. it’s certainly more flavorful, and if you toleratethose well, do it. dr. kate: exactly. yeah, and i think thatthere is, like i said, there’s lots more research that we need to do in terms of testingand identifying foods, because every healthy culture would have had their high-k2 foods.we haven’t identified them all. fish eggs are probably one of them. price suggestedthat fish eggs were high in activator x. it
was traditional food that would be eaten bypeople who were going to be married, so this was for boosting fertility. a lot of thosehigh-k2 foods important for fertility and proper facial development in children in utero.dave: my wife and i wrote the better baby book. it’s funny you mention that specificpoint, because we included that, eat fish eggs during pregnancy, but don’t eat thedyed ones, when they put the orange dye, like the tiny fish eggs, tobiko, you can get ata sushi restaurant. those have petroleum-derived dye in them. it’s funny. if you’re listening,you’re like, “okay, how do i know all this stuff,†like how do you know this stuffif you’re trying to eat for fertility. it’s rough, and no one’s going to be perfect.okay, do something that’s kind of right,
and you’ll still be better off.when it comes to the different sources of k2, i wanted to really dial in, because wehave a lot really science- and information-based people listening to this. we have vitamink1. we have vitamin k2. we have mk-4, and we have mk-7. can you walk through specificallywhat are the differences between k1 and k2? we already know that k1 doesn’t convertto k2 very well. what about mk-4, mk-7, and if you’re at the supplement store buyingthis, what do you look for? dr. kate: very good question. confusion aroundexactly this question is the reason why vitamin k2 was overlooked for so long, because k1and k2 were both discovered back in the 1930s. the “k†comes from the german word forcoagulation. at the time, researchers recognized
vitamin k1 … they were talking about … isfound in high amounts in green, leafy vegetables. it participates in blood clotting. that’sits role in the body, is to make sure our blood can clot properly. blood clotting’sso important that it just can’t be left to the whims of our diet. you can’t affordto bleed to death because it’s winter and you can’t get green vegetables. the bodydeveloped a mechanism to recycle vitamin k1, so you’d always have it there for your bloodclotting. deficiency is very rare with vitamin k1.at the time, researchers noticed a slightly different form of vitamin k that they calledk2, but they more or less said, “k1, k2, same thing. they’re blood-clotting vitamins.that’s it. let’s keep moving forward.â€
it turns out that was wrong. that’s whyk2 was overlooked, because k2 does not come from green, leafy vegetables. it does notparticipate in blood clotting under normal circumstances. because of that, we don’thave a mechanism to recycle it. it’s not recycled, so you can become deficient in k2in as little as seven days if you have a k2-deficient diet. studies have shown now that that’sreally common, several, actually. one that came up just a couple months ago. very commonin adolescents as well as adults, k2 deficiency. dave: if you eat kale chips every day, eventhough kale starts with the letter k, you still could be deficient in vitamin k?dr. kate: that’s right. you’ll have lots of k1. all you have to do is eat the parsleyon the side of your plate once in a while,
and you’ll have plenty of k1, because thebody reuses it. k2, you won’t have it. dave: looks like those kale smoothies weren’tthe best advice, after all. too bad. then again, if you add grass-fed butter to yourkale, you’ve got some k2 right there, and you’ve got some k1. is there an advantageto taking k1 and k2 together for the body? dr. kate: i don’t think so, necessarily.they work differently. it’s funny. i guess all these traditional recipes, like some green,leafy vegetables cooked up with butter and cheese, that would be high in both of thosenutrients. maybe there is some kind of interaction there.dave: okay. that sounds like there could be something, but who knows. it’s like vitamina and beta-carotene. there’s different interactions
there. what about mk-4 versus mk-7? can yougo into more info on those? dr. kate: yeah. when we’re talking aboutvitamin k2, there are lots of different types of vitamin k2. in nature, mk-4, menaquinone-4,is a short-chain form of vitamin k2 that we find naturally in animals and animal food.we as humans have this in our bodies. grass-fed animals, if you have an egg yolk from a grass-fedchicken or butter, all of those things, those will be high in mk-4, the short-chain form.bacterial production of vitamin k2 will produce a number of long-chain forms, mk-5, 6, 7,8, through 10. natto is very high in mk-7. cheeses are high in mk-7, 8, 9, and 10.as far as we know, all of these, 4 through 10, have all the same health benefits. thedifference is the dose that you have to take
when we’re looking at supplements. whenyou’re looking at buying a vitamin k2 supplement, there’s two types that you’ll find onthe market, mk-4 supplements and mk-7. the mk-4 supplements are not from animals. they’renot, say, making grass-fed butter, and extracting that and putting it into a supplement. thatwould be crazy expensive. that’s not what they’re doing. it’s actually a syntheticform of vitamin k2 when you buy mk-4 supplement. the mk-7 supplements are generally from natto,although there are some now soy-free synthetic forms of mk-7 coming onto the market for peoplewho want to completely avoid soy for whatever reason.both of these forms of vitamin k2 work. there’s been research done on both forms, and i getgood feedback about both types. you just have
to know what dose, because the dose variesdepending on the type of vitamin k2 you’re taking.dave: okay. we’ll post a summary of that on the show notes for this. of course, we’llhave links to your site and all, as well. my recommendations for vitamin d have beenbased on dr. cannell’s exhaustive research from the vitamin d research council. i’vedonated money to support his research. are you familiar with dr. cannell’s work?dr. kate: mm-hmm. dave: okay. cool. that recommendation is 1,000ius of vitamin d3 based on every 25 pounds of body weight. number one, do you agree withthose recommendations? number two, how does k2 and vitamin d interact, either from a doseperspective or just tell us how it works?
dr. kate: this is a really important question,because there’s been so much debate around what’s the right dose of vitamin d. a lotof people saying in low amounts, like 400 ius or 1,000 at the most. then there’s otherpeople at a much higher end, 10, 20, 30,000 ius. it turns out that the right amount ofvitamin d, i don’t think, can actually even be determined by your body weight, becausehow much vitamin d you take and how much vitamin d anybody should take, the right answer tothat is, it depends. dave: test your blood?dr. kate: actually, it depends. you can test your blood, but even that won’t tell you,because what it depends on is actually vitamin k2. chris masterjohn is the one that reallybrought this to the forefront, the relationship
between d and k in this way. in fact, thetoxicity we see with vitamin d is actually an induced deficiency of k2. what are thetoxic symptoms of vitamin d? you just keep absorbing calcium, and that calcium startsto deposit all over your body in inappropriate areas. you can prevent that by taking k2 withyour d. really, once you’ve got some k2 with your d, the sky’s the limit. d also… dave: the sky’s the limit on … wait, holdon. what does that mean? dr. kate: on how much d you could safety take.dave: oh, okay. got it. dr. kate: there’s a relationship here withvitamin a, because studies have shown that by giving d and a together, a has a k2-sparingeffect. a and d are like the gas and the brakes
on the car. they will balance one anotherand complement one another. then k2 completes the cycle and allows your body to use calciumperfectly with all of these fat-soluble nutrients. it’s impossible to say how much d you shouldbe taking, unless you’re having some k2 in your diet.dave: let’s assume someone has enough k2, and they’re taking vitamin d3. will theird3 blood levels, the 25-ohd, will that change because of the k2?dr. kate: that we don’t know. we haven’t looked at whether it actually affects yourblood levels. we do know that … dave: okay, we’re back on. it looks likeyou froze. we were just talking about what your blood levels would look like with takingadequate vitamin k2 and taking vitamin d.
would your 25-ohd change?dr. kate: not that we know of. we haven’t really looked at how the intake of k2 wouldaffect your blood levels of vitamin d. we just know that d and k2 work together to optimizeyour calcium metabolism and makes sure that calcium’s getting into the right places.d helps you absorb calcium. k2 puts it into the right places.dave: right now, i recommend people take between 400 and 800 milligrams of absorbable formsof magnesium on a regular basis, as long as they’re not getting the runs from it, becausemagnesium works with calcium. it also works to counter some of the excess calcificationthat is a problem. if people are taking adequate k2 and adequate vitamin d, should they changetheir magnesium intake, or should they add
calcium back into their supplement regiment?dr. kate: i don’t think that they should add calcium back in, because they’re actuallygoing to be using the calcium from their diet more efficiently. that wouldn’t be necessary.i think the magnesium is still necessary. k2 and magnesium seem to complement one anotherin terms of health benefits and actions in the body in so many different ways that it’sactually driving me crazy. i can’t figure out exactly how they’re related, but i knowthey are. they do good things together. dave: here’s a suggestion for that. we knowthat magnesium is a cofactor for vitamin d doing what it needs to do inside the cell.it could just be that because magnesium helps vitamin d work better, that therefore vitamink2 works better through the indirect effect
on vitamin d. it’s just a theory. no sciencebehind it, but it makes sense. dr. kate: it’s a good theory. it’s plausible,for sure. dave: okay. who knows. that’s going to requirea whole bunch of medical studies or something. this is really fascinating, to be able toask all these good questions. if you’re listening to this going, “ah, what doesit mean i should do?†what it means you should do is you should take vitamin d. ithink the levels that i’m recommending on the site are very science-based. dr. cannellhas reviewed thousands and thousands of vitamin d studies. he’s one of the most concentratedsources of knowledge i know of, so i tend to go with his recommendations there for thatnutrient.
dr. kate today is going to cause me to updatethe vitamin k2 recommendations on the site, which are already there, but we’ll tightenthem up a bit and maybe increase the levels. the magnesium levels, we’ve just checked,are borne out. we’re not going to be talking about adding any calcium back into the diet,with the exception of calcium aep … which i recommend for cell membrane stability, notas a source of calcium … and calcium d-glucarate … which is something that i recommend forincreasing your liver’s ability to use its second-best detox mechanism, which is calledglucarination. if that was too technical, there’s ten things listed on the site. youcan just go download them and read them, and it’s all free.other question for you, though, dr. kate.
i like bubbly water. i’m holding a bottleof san pellegrino in front of my face. i like san pellegrino because it tastes good, particularlywith lime. i also like it because, if you look at the really super-fine print on thelabel there that i’m holding up to the screen, that you probably won’t be able to read,it is one of the few things that contains appreciable amount of sulfate.that’s one of the reasons that san pellegrino, saint pellegrino, is a healing spring in italy,because sulfate can have a really cool effect inside the body. we’re just figuring outwhat vitamin d sulfate does, for instance, that only gets activated from the sun. ifyou want to get it, you drink pellegrino. you get a lot of calcium in here. am i overdosingon calcium because i drink between 750 and
1,500 milliliters of this stuff every day?should i be worried? dr. kate: i don’t think you should be worried,because you’ve got k2 working for you and making sure the calcium isn’t depositingin your arteries. you are taking magnesium, which will balance out the amount of calciumyou’re getting in there. i think you’re fine. when i’m looking for a bubbly water,i usually look at the ratio of magnesium to calcium. it’s hard to find a high-magnesiumbubbly water, as well as, then, finding one with sulfates. really nice water in that wayis really tough. with your magnesium and k2, no, i don’t think you need to be concerned.dave: okay. cool. i don’t think so, either, also because i eat a stick of butter everyday. i have for a long time, because i drink
bulletproof coffee and i add brain octane,which is another fully saturated short-chain fat, onto my diet in copious amounts. i’mgoing to go down to seattle and get a calcium scan of my arteries. of course, i’ll talkabout those results. i’m pretty sure i know what they’re going to say, but hey, let’sbe safe and careful. as an n equals 1 experience, i will share that data. i’m pretty sureyou could predict the outcome of that, as well, given that you know what i take. we’llget the data. i haven’t done the scan yet, so i don’t know what it is. i’ll tellyou when i know. dr. kate: looking forward to seeing that.dave: what else should people know about k2 that i haven’t asked?dr. kate: i touched on the fact that it is
such an important nutrient for prenatal health,during pregnancy, and childhood. it plays a really important role in proper facial development.i’ve got before and after pictures in my book. price focused on this. this is alsoborne out by modern research, looking at defects and deficiency in vitamin k and how this affectsfacial development. important for nice, wide, straight teeth.if you’ve got kids coming and you want to avoid braces down the road, k2 will help youdo that. throughout childhood, to improve skeletal growth as well as fighting cavities.then again throughout adolescence, when those hormones kick in and the skeleton starts togrow, it’s a huge time of increased nutrient need. vitamin k2 is a really important nutrienthere. osteoporosis prevention really starts
in adolescence, when you can gain as muchbone density as possible by the age of 20 and 30 to save it for later on.dave: wow. that’s really cool information. is there a connection between … wow, i hadn’tthought of that. is there a connection between vitamin k2 and folic acid? because you seecleft palate in children who are deficient, actually, in activated … it’s not evenfolic acid. it’s folinic acid or folate. this is something we wrote about in the betterbaby book, and we talked about k2 and its importance. is there an interaction that idon’t know about between folic acid and k2?dr. kate: not a direct interaction between those nutrients that i’ve come across. anytime you see a midline deficit like that,
you’re looking at a nutrient problem. thedeficits that we see with k2 are different. all of those conditions, any nutritionallyrelated condition, will increase in prevalence with birth order. in other words, mom tendsto give lots of her nutrients to the first baby that’s born. unless she knows the rightfoods to eat, subsequent kids will have a higher risk of facial and dental deformitiesand these kinds of problems, if she’s not replenishing her body to pass it onto thekids. dave: after you have a baby, if you’re goingto have more, eat a lot more liver, is what that comes down to, right?dr. kate: lots more liver. wait a couple years, space those babies out, and eat lots of liverand butter and all those foods.
dave: awesome. that is good advice, even thoughliver tastes gross. dr. kate, there’s a question that every guest on the podcast hasanswered. that is, what are the top three recommendations you have for people who wantto perform better, who want to kick more ass? this doesn’t have to be just k2. it doesn’thave to be just medicine. based on your entire life’s knowledge, if you had to share threethings, what would they be? dr. kate: oh, wow. based on my entire life’sknowledge, that’s putting me on the spot. dave: yes.dr. kate: let me stick to nutrition for the moment. i would say number one is, try natto.you might hate it, but you might love it. dave, you were pretty cagey there. you actuallydidn’t admit whether or not you’re eating
it. i’m guessing you’re not. it’s wortha try for everyone if you can find it and try it, because you might like it and you’llbe much better off for it. dave: truth be told, if i’m at a sushi restaurantand they have natto, i eat it sometimes, but i wonder if the soybeans are genetically modifiedor not, because i try not to eat them. i don’t know the right answer to do there.dr. kate: fair enough. if you can find organic natto, which would be made with non-gmo soybeans.i also know people that are making their own, or using things like black beans and usingthe natto culture, and making their own ferment with the natto culture.dave: okay. i would do that. i eat all sorts of things that taste gross because they’regood for me, so i don’t mind making a natto
raw liver smoothie. okay, i’ll do that,but i don’t have to like it. that was one, eat natto.dr. kate: number two, i already touched on it. that would be, eat liver sometimes. it’snot sexy. it doesn’t always … you can make it taste good, if you learn to cook it.chicken livers are a lot easier if you learn to cook it properly. eat it sometimes, becauseit really is probably the most nutritious food.dave: i take desiccated grass-fed liver capsules, so i don’t have to taste it, or i freezeit. when we buy a whole animal, i freeze it in little cubes and swallow them like pills,because i don’t like it. yeah, okay. got it. liver, check.dr. kate: you could do that, too.
dave: okay.dr. kate: number three … and i think that you’ll like this one a lot better … isbrie cheese and a glass of red wine is the ultimate heart-healthy snack.dave: red wine with ochratoxin a. you’ve lost me on that one. why wouldn’t you usecoffee instead? dr. kate: you could, but in the evening beforebedtime or later in the day, if you’re caffeine sensitive like i am, even with the bulletproofcoffee, it’ll keep me up. dave: oh, yeah. i don’t drink that beforebed. never drink it after 2. that’s my recommendation. that stuff is rocket fuel. i’m about topublish some more research about red wine and the prevalence of mycotoxins and moldtoxins in red wine, and tell people how they
can choose a healthier red wine with lesseffect on their kidneys and their cardiovascular health, because there are some serious problems,particularly in north america, where the standards are more lax around mold toxins.i’m seeing european wines that are not designed for export have dramatically lower levelsof toxins than some of the other wines. it’s funny, how you feel the next morning, basedon the quality of the cheese and the quality of the wine, is huge. the differentiatingfactor there are these toxins that are active at a parts-per-billion amount. what i don’tknow, and i’m dying to know, is whether k2 would make me more resilient against moldtoxins. i’m going to have to see if i can dig that one up, if there is anything.dr. kate: you’re right. i should have qualified
that with “good quality,†because thatmakes a difference in everything, even with your liver. it’s got to be organic.dave: oh, yeah. good point. dr. kate: water, and, yeah.dave: cool. what a cool list of questions. i can tell you that out of more than 100 peoplewho have been on this show, including, like i said, chris masterjohn … let’s see,chris kresser’s been on, and who else was just on? mark from mark’s daily apple wasjust on, mark sisson … out of all of those people, no one has put “eat liver and eatnatto†as their top three. you’re totally nailing some new ideas here. i love it. thankyou. dr. kate: all right. you’re welcome.dave: would you tell people the title of your
book, where they can find out more about yourbook and more about you? dr. kate: sure. my book is called vitamink2 and the calcium paradox: how a little-known vitamin could save your life. that’s literallytrue. they can find my book on all of the online booksellers … although they’vebeen selling out a lot lately, so be patient with them … or by going to my website, www.doctorkatend.com.dave: dr. kate, nd, as in naturopathic doctor, just so people will hear the “n†versus“m,†if they’re driving. dr. kate, it’s been a pleasure being able to ask you thosedetailed questions that hopefully didn’t bore any listeners. remember, if you heardthis, there’s a reason that vitamin d and vitamin k2 and magnesium … actually, andvitamin a … are all on the top ten vitamins
list for people who want to be more bulletproofin their life. signing out now. if you like the show, please click “like†or whateverit is you do on itunes to tell people it’s a good show and they should listen. have anawesome day. featured doctorkatend.com vitamin k2 and the calcium paradox: how alittle-known vitamin could save your life resources weston a. price foundation silicon valley health institute
bulletproof bulletproof podcast #16 with chris masterjohn upgraded collagen upgraded brain octane bulletproof list of top supplements better baby book bulletproof toolboxpodcast #106, dr. kate rhã©aume-bleue 14 â© the bulletproof executive 2013
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