Vitamin K May Protect Against Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

In the first study of vitamin K and non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have found that people with a higher vitamin K intake from their diet have a lower risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, the researchers reported that the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma was approximately 45% lower for participants who had vitamin K intakes in the top quartile of intake in the study (greater than 108 mcg/day) compared with participants who had intakes in the bottom quartile (less than 39 mcg/day). This association remained after accounting for factors such as age, sex, education, obesity, smoking, alcohol use, and intake of high-antioxidant foods.

“These results are provocative, since they are the first work we have done on the connection between vitamin K and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and this is a fairly strong protective effect,” said the study’s lead investigator, James Cerhan, MD, PhD, a cancer epidemiologist. “However, as with all new findings, this will need to be replicated in other studies.”

The Mayo study enrolled 603 patients who were newly diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma as well as 1,007 matched cancer-free control participants. Researchers asked the participants to answer a food questionnaire about their usual intake of more than 120 food items two years prior to their cancer diagnosis or enrollment in the study. They also asked about use of various supplements; vitamin K intake was estimated from these data.

While there was a clear trend showing that a greater intake of vitamin K from dietary sources was associated with a lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the use of vitamin K supplements presented a slightly different picture. Increasing intake of vitamin K from supplements did protect against non-Hodgkin lymphoma but reached a point where the highest intake offered no reduction in risk. “The significance of this finding is unclear,” noted Cerhan, “but suggests that taking high doses of supplements is unlikely to be helpful.” Cerhan also noted that people taking certain oral anticoagulants or seizure medications should closely follow their physicians’ dietary recommendations with respect to vitamin K intake, since vitamin K can interfere with these drugs.

Source: Mayo Clinic