REVIEW article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Clinical Nutrition
Vitamin K and Muscle Health: Mechanisms and Clinical Perspectives in Sarcopenia and Beyond:Narrative Review
Provisionally accepted
- 1North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, China
- 2Chengdu Third People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
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Vitamin K, a fat-soluble micronutrient traditionally recognized for its role in blood coagulation, has increasingly been implicated as a micronutrient with emerging roles in skeletal muscle health. Experimental and clinical evidence now suggests that vitamin K influences skeletal muscle through both γ-carboxylation–dependent pathways—mediated by osteocalcin, matrix Gla protein (MGP), and growth arrest–specific 6 (Gas6)—and through non-carboxylation mechanisms, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, mitochondrial-regulatory, and ferroptosis-suppressing effects. Observational studies associate higher vitamin K intake and status with greater muscle strength, higher muscle mass, and better physical performance among older adults. However, findings from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) remain inconclusive, possibly due to differences in vitamin K isoforms, dosage, intervention duration, and study populations. Beyond age-related sarcopenia, vitamin K may also play a potentially protective role in muscle dysfunction associated with chronic diseases, including dialysis-related cramps and metabolic disorders. This review synthesizes recent mechanistic insights and clinical evidence, highlighting vitamin K as a biologically plausible contributor that is supported primarily by observatioal and mechanistic evidence for the prevention and management of sarcopenia and other muscle-related disorders, though its role remains incompletely validated.
Keywords: anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, Muscle, Sarcopenia, Vitamin K, Vitamin K–dependent proteins
Received: 16 Oct 2025; Accepted: 06 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 冉, Jiang, Mao, Chen, Jing and Jing. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: 小雨 冉
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