Vitamin D is one of the most important nutrients for your body, due to its impact on bone health, immune function, cell growth, cardiovascular health, and muscle function. It\u2019s estimated that between 20-50% of people worldwide do not meet the criteria for healthy vitamin D levels, depending on which standard you use.<\/p>\n
When shopping for a vitamin D supplement, you may notice that many products combine vitamin D with vitamin K. For years it has been assumed that a person\u2019s vitamin K status affects how well vitamin D works in the body. The thought is that vitamin K may help direct vitamin D into bones rather than arteries.<\/p>\n
A recent study<\/a> put this thought to the test. The study was actually a follow-up analysis of a larger trial that gave 200 adults with high blood pressure and low vitamin D either a daily vitamin D supplement (2,800 IU) or a placebo for 8 weeks. Researchers measured three forms of vitamin K (K1, MK-4, MK-7) in participants\u2019 blood using a highly precise lab method.<\/p>\n What they found is that vitamin K status had no meaningful effect on how well vitamin D worked. Whether someone had high or low vitamin K levels didn\u2019t change how vitamin D affected bone markers (like osteocalcin, CTX, P1NP) or cardiovascular markers (blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose). On the flip side, vitamin D markers didn\u2019t affect vitamin K levels either.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean vitamin K is useless; it just means this study didn\u2019t find it enhances vitamin D\u2019s effects. This study was only 8 weeks long and performed in a very specific population (adults with hypertension and low vitamin D). But overall it should potentially change our assumption of vitamin K being a necessary addition to vitamin D supplements.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re considering a vitamin D supplement, know that a plain vitamin D product is likely just as effective as a pricier D+K combo for improving your vitamin D status. As always, more research is needed to fully settle the question, but for now, don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re missing out by skipping the vitamin K.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Men’s Fitness<\/a> on Aug 24, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Men’s Fitness as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vitamin D is one of the most important nutrients for your body, due to its impact on bone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269],"class_list":["post-824711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}