Vitamin K, an essential nutrient that prevents blood cots and aids in bone health could also be an effective long-term treatment for neurodegenerative diseases.
A Japanese study team took the molecule, created a novel, altered form and used it to improve the transcriptions of cells into neurons at a rate 300% higher than controls.
If replicated in humans, such an effect would slow or even reverse the progress of diseases like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s, and would be one of the first to be demonstrated to do so.
Though possessing of this neuroprotective effect, naturally-forming vitamin K compounds like menaquinone-4 are likely not substantial enough to prevent the onset and progression of these diseases.
In a groundbreaking study published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, researchers from the Department of Bioscience and Engineering at Shibaura Institute of Technology in Japan synthesized 12 different vitamin K analogues that included a metabolite of vitamin A called retinoic acid, and a methyl ester side chain.
This analogue exhibited “a three-fold higher neuronal differentiation activity,” meaning it stimulated neuronal progenitor cells in mice to form new neurons.
This novel form of vitamin K interacted heavily with the cellular receptor for metabotropic glutamate (mGluRs) which is known to be very involved with neuron intercommunication, and which if inhabited in mice, creates behavior alternations similar to those seen in dementia patients.
DEMENTIA DRUG RESEARCH:
“Our research offers a potentially groundbreaking approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases. A vitamin K-derived drug that slows the progression of Alzheimer’s disease or improves its symptoms could not only improve the quality of life for patients and their families but also significantly reduce the growing societal burden of healthcare expenditures and long-term caregiving,” the authors concluded their study by writing.
Vitamin K, being a safe and tolerable naturally-occurring essential nutrient, would have enormous advantages for drug manufacturers looking to capitalize on this research for a dementia treatment.
While any form of the molecule would have to be proven efficacious as a treatment, safety trials would be very straightforward as the compound already has established safety and supplemental doses.
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