This started out as a post about multiple nutritional factors that may influence your body's response to COVID-19. However, that grew too lengthy and I had to shorten it to one supplement at a time. I share today's on Vitamin K because it was mostly written already. It happens to be the least helpful of the posts I'll try to put up within the next week.
Vitamin K is a group of fat soluble vitamins found naturally in leafy green vegetables and synthesized by certain populations of gut bacteria. Vitamin K has important functions in the cascade of events that lead to blood clotting and breaking up of clots. It also has a role in lung fibrosis ("scar tissue" in the lungs) arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries due to dysfunctional calcium deposition). Some studies have shown benefits of Vitamin K in reversing arteriosclerosis and preventing lung fibrosis in some diseases. Coagulation disorders (clotting problems) and lung fibrosis are both features of severe cases of COVID-19.
An article in preprint out of the Netherlands has found that low levels of Vitamin K are associated with severe cases of COVID-19. The observational study was small (123 admitted to the hospital with COVID-19; their samples were compared to 184 non-COVID subjects) but demonstrated a very significant deficit of Vitamin K in the sick patients compared to the control group. It should be noted, this study DID NOT look at treating patients with Vitamin K and monitor for improvement or compare to non-treated patients. In addition, we do know that patients who suffer more severely from COVID-19 often have comorbid conditions like diabetes, COPD and heart disease. This is the very same population that is known to have deficiencies in Vitamin K already. So teasing out causality here will require many more studies. In fact, the authors conclude by calling for trials of treating COVID-19 patients with Vitamin K. I am unaware of any studies being conducted in this vein currently.
While we do not have evidence yet to encourage people to take a Vitamin K supplement to try to prevent some of the more severe outcomes of COVID-19, there is some evidence that supplementing may be helpful in general for people who have diabetes, COPD, coronary artery disease or hypertension. At the very least, we can all stand to eat more leafy greens and include dietary and lifestyle practices that promote a healthy gut microbiome!
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