The #1 Cause of Arterial Stiffness (Hypertension)
Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast
Dr. Eric Berg
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2023
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Unfortunately, heart attacks, strokes, and high blood pressure are common problems. So, today we’re going to talk about what causes arterial stiffness or calcified arteries.
Common causes of stiff arteries:
• Age
• Inflammation
• A high-carb, high-sugar diet
• Omega-6 fatty acids
There is one additional cause of hardened arteries that many people are unaware of, and it’s a vitamin K2 deficiency.
Vitamin K2 drives calcium into the bones to help make them stronger and keeps calcium out of the arteries and the walls of the arteries. Vitamin K2 may decrease the risk of heart attack by 50 percent.
Foods high in vitamin K2:
• Meats
• Organ meats
• Egg yolks
• Grass-fed butter
• Dairy
• Yogurt
Adding vitamin K2 to vitamin D3 is a fantastic way to support the arteries. For every 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 you take, you should also consume 100 mcg of vitamin K2.
It’s important to note that people who take a calcium supplement (1,000 mg or more a day), with or without vitamin D, increase the risk of a heart attack. This could be because of the lack of vitamin K2. It’s also important to keep in mind that one of the side effects of warfarin is vascular calcification.
To support the arteries, get on a low-carb diet, avoid omega-6 fatty acids, and consume foods rich in vitamin K2. If you take a vitamin K2 supplement, it may be best to take vitamin D3 as well.
DATA:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Now, since heart attacks, strokes, and high blood pressure are very common, |
| 0:05.6 | it might be a good idea to know more about this arterial stiffness problem. Your arteries |
| 0:11.4 | becoming calcified. This usually comes from getting older. It can come from inflammation |
| 0:19.8 | because a person is a diabetic or they consume a lot of carbs and sugar that create fibrosis. |
| 0:27.2 | Or, for example, they're consuming foods that are very inflammatory, like the omega-6 fatty acids. |
| 0:33.0 | But there is one additional, very important factor that you need to know about. It's actually a |
| 0:40.5 | cause of hardening of the arteries, or your arteries becoming very, very stiff. And that is a vitamin |
| 0:50.0 | K2 deficiency. When you are deficient in vitamin K2, the calcium that is floating through your blood |
| 0:58.4 | doesn't necessarily go anywhere. It's not directed in the bones. You see, vitamin K2 has a lot of |
| 1:06.8 | benefits to your body, but two really important ones we're going to talk about are, number one, |
| 1:11.8 | driving the calcium into your bone and making your bones really strong. So there's two proteins |
| 1:18.7 | that vitamin K2 are dependent upon. One being responsible for keeping your bones really, really |
| 1:25.4 | strong and preventing osteoporosis and osteopenia. And the other is keeping calcium out of the arteries |
| 1:35.6 | and out of the walls of your arteries. And so I'm going to put several links down below |
| 1:42.4 | to back up what I'm saying from some really interesting, credible studies. But vitamin K2 |
| 1:48.8 | can keep the calcium out of your arteries and in the right place to bones. It can even decrease |
| 1:55.0 | your risk of heart attacks by 50% if you have enough in your body. But the problem is a lot of people |
| 2:00.6 | are deficient in vitamin K2 because they don't know where vitamin K2 comes from. It comes from the very |
| 2:07.6 | food that they are told to avoid. It comes from food high in saturated fat and cholesterol. |
| 2:14.2 | You can also get it from other fermented foods like a NATO. But typically in the west, |
| 2:20.2 | we don't even know what NATO is. It's a fermented soybean product that is never served in any |
| 2:26.8 | restaurants. But if you live in Asia, you might know more about NATO. But you get vitamin K2 |
... |
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