Relation Between Circulating Vitamin K1 and Osteoporosis in the Lumbar Spine in Syrian Post-Menopausal Women

In the past two decades, Vitamin K has been receiving more attention due to its role in bone health and metabolism. The bone mineral density does not remain steady with age, particularly declining after menopause.

This study is aimed to investigate the relationship between bone mineral density and serum vitamin K1 levels in post-menopausal women, and to evaluate serum vitamin K1 levels as a potential biomarker for postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Serum levels of vitamin k1 were measured in 23 postmenopausal osteoporotic women, and in 15 postmenopausal healthy control women using a standardized Enzyme-Linked Immune Sorbent Assay (ELISA) kit. Bone mineral density BMD was assessed at the lumbar spine.

The mean serum vitamin k1 level was significantly lower in the postmenopausal osteoporotic women group than in the normal control group (mean=0.794 vs3.61ng/ml, P< 0.0001), and serum vitamin k1 concentration was positively correlated with lumbar spine BMD among postmenopausal osteoporotic women (R=0.533, p = 0.009), and in postmenopausal healthy control (R=0.563, p = 0.02).

Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of vitamin k1 for osteoporosis were 90% and 98%, respectively (cut-off value: 0.853 ng/ml). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) value for vitamin k1 was 0.984 the odd ratio result was 18.66.

Our results suggest that vitamin K1 may contribute to maintain bone mineral density. Vitamin K1 may have a role in diagnosing post-menopausal osteoporosis. Vitamin K1 may be a valuable diagnostic as well as therapeutic marker in post-menopausal osteoporosis.