Menatetrenone, a vitamin K2 analog, ameliorates cytopenia in patients with refractory anemia of myelodysplastic syndrome

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in the context of anemia in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Vitamin K2 induces differentiation of leukemic cell lines and apoptosis of immature blasts in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).

The researchers recently reported a case of MDS-refractory anemia (MDS-RA) with trilineage hematologic response to oral administration of menatetrenone, a vitamin K2 analog.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 18 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

Because people in this Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

The timeline in the abstract includes 16 weeks.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anemia, Refractory, Cell Count, Hematopoiesis, Hemostatics, Myelodysplastic Syndromes and Vitamin K 2.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 18 patients in people with anemia over 16 weeks.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The publication is from 2002 (Annals of hematology), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, Anemia research.