All is not as it seems when it comes to the sales of vitamin K2 supplements sold on one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in the U.S. Research conducted by global manufacturer of specialty ingredients for human nutrition and health, Balchem, in conjunction with ISO accredited natural product testing laboratory, Alkemist Labs, consisted of testing 38 formats and formulations of vitamin K2 products. The results: 71% underperformed in the quality benchmarks.
This news causes issues primarily for consumers who purchase the products expecting to feel/see the results of the products claim's but also creates unwanted issues for the the supplements industry, as a whole, as it constantly struggles to establish and maintain trust and credibility amongst consumers. VP Science, Business Development and Marketing Balchem Human Nutrition and Health, Dominik Mattern, expressed the company's sense of responsibility for providing customers with as much truthful information as possible, “As leaders in the vitamin K2 industry, we believe we have a responsibility to meet and maintain benchmarks for quality and transparency. And we’re scrutinizing our own ingredients too. We’ve signed up to the Alkemist Assured transparency program to ensure that our K2VITAL ingredients are third party verified to meet the highest quality standards. Through this program, our K2VITAL MCC 1% and MCT 1% solutions are independently tested for assay and isomeric purity – a practice that started two years ago. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure consumers are given the high-quality, efficacious products they’re seeking."
The main issue found in these failed products lies within their ingredients composition. Some multi-vitamin and combination K2-plus-mineral formulations used rapidly degrading, unprotected forms of vitamin K2, and others used excessive cis isomers, which are not as biologically effective as all-trans MK-7 vitamin K2, according to Balchem; the company says this results in content with low isomeric purity. To address this, Balchem has begun setting new industry standards with the development of meticulous testing protocols for its own vitamin K2 ingredients portfolio, which includes its all-trans bioactive form of viatmin K2 MK-7, K2VITAL, AND K2VITAL DELTA. The company feels that through its efforts along with industry collaboration, consumer education, and regulation, the safety and stability of future vitamin K2 products for consumers can be ensured.
