New Role for Vitamin K in Preventing Diabetes: Breakthrough Discovery by Canadian Scientists

Canadian scientists have identified a new role for vitamin K and gamma-carboxylation in beta cells and their potential to protect against diabetes, reports the electronic edition of “Medical Express”.

The discovery made by researchers from the University of Montreal, Canada and the Montreal Clinical Research Institute represents a breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms that lead to the onset of diabetes, a disease that affects one in eleven people on the planet and for which there is no cure, they note the publication.

The study, published in Cell Reports, explains how vitamin K helps prevent diabetes and could lead to new therapies for type 2 diabetes.

Vitamin K is known for its role in blood clotting, particularly in gamma-carboxylation. For many years, scientists assumed that vitamin K and gamma-carboxylation had other functions.

Several previous studies have suggested a link between low vitamin K intake and an increased risk of diabetes. However, to date, the biological mechanisms by which vitamin K protects against diabetes have remained unknown.

In their study, the team led by Mathieu Feron discovered that the enzymes involved in gamma-carboxylation, and therefore in the use of vitamin K, are present in large quantities in pancreatic beta cells, which produce the insulin that controls blood sugar levels.

“Diabetes is known to be caused by a reduction in the number of beta cells or their ability to produce enough insulin, and this explains our interest in this finding,” said Ferron.

“We were able to identify a new gamma-carboxylated protein called ERGP,” added Julie Lacombe from Feron’s lab. “Our research shows that this protein plays an important role in maintaining physiological levels of calcium in beta cells to prevent disturbances in insulin secretion. We have shown that vitamin K, through gamma-carboxylation, has an important role in ERGP functions,” she said.

A new protein dependent on vitamin K has been identified for the first time in the last 15 years, opening a new field of research in this field, exquis.ro cites.

Source: ReplicaOnline.ro