Vitamin K Might Prevent Liver Cancer
 (HealthDayNews, 7/20/04)

Between 1996 and 1998, Dr. Susumu Shiomi of the Graduate School of Medicine at Osaka City University in Japan, and associates, randomly assigned 40 women with viral liver cirrhosis, caused by such diseases as hepatitis C, to take a daily dose of either a placebo or a pill containing 45 mg of vitamin K. The scientists were studying bone loss prevention, but they noticed that while nine out of 19 of the control subjects developed liver cancer, only two of the 21 women taking the vitamin K did. These findings suggest that vitamin K, which is normally produced by the intestines and stored in the liver, may inhibit cancer cell growth, a possibility of special interest to people with viral cirrhosis, since this disease raises the risk of liver cancer.

(Journal of the American Medical Association, 7/21/04)