Vitamin K & healthy ageing

Identifier:  TDX:3351

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX3351

Authors:  Camacho Barcia, María Lucía

Abstract:
The demographic transition headed for an older society is becoming a challenge for the global social economy, especially for the public health care systems. Evidence, supporting different promoters of health on age-related conditions is necessary in order to improve the quality of life towards a heathier ageing process. Vitamin K has been suggested to play a modulatory role in ageing and age-related mechanisms such as oxidative stress, inflammation and insulin resistance. However, the current evidence regarding vitamin K’s association with the risk of age-related diseases is still scarce. The main objective of this work was to evaluate, the association between the dietary vitamin K1 intake and the risk of cataracts, diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy, cognitive function decline and dementia. The present work was conducted in the framework of the PREDIMED and the PREDIMED-plus studies, both large multicentre, parallel, randomized clinical trials carried out on elderly Mediterranean populations at high cardiovascular risk. Results derived from the present work showed significant positive associations between dietary vitamin K1 intake and the risk of cataracts, diabetic nephropathy and dementia. Likewise, an increment in the consumption of vitamin K1 was associated with better performance in cognitive functioning scores. The main conclusion derived from this Doctoral Thesis is that compared to a low intake, a high dietary vitamin K1 intake is associated with healthy ageing through decreasing the risk of different age-related diseases among an elderly Mediterranean population at high cardiovascular risk.