Does Nattokinase Really Shrink Artery Plaque?

[00:00:00]Hey, it's Mike here and today an enzyme derived from a sticky, gooey traditional Japanese dish that has research claiming that it lowers arterial plaque volume.

[00:00:10]Yes, we're talking about nattokynise. Is popping a pill of this going to shred the plaque in your arteries like I've seen in supplement ads on my feed? So, we're going to crack open all of the main studies on this topic as well as look at the mechanisms to answer the question of whether we should be slamming down this natto supplement or heed the words of this Men's Health article to not fall for this naughty natto trend. Let's go. Real fast. For those who missed it, I'm going to be going to Mexico City with my friend Desh in October. It's going to be a delicious vegan tour of a bunch of food and cultural sites. And the trip is officially confirmed and only has a handful of spots left. So, just click the link below and use the code Mike 100 for 100 bucks off that. Check it out.

[00:00:52]Anyway, let's keep going. What the heck is Nattokynise anyway? And how is it formed? Well, of course, we have soybeans. Doesn't have to be soybeans, but they're a great candidate which can go down either one of two tracks. One is the traditional gooey natto from Japan where they are using aerobic fermentation to create that whole soybean fermented product. traditionally aerobically fermented in some rice straw bundles and tends to have about 1 to 2,000 units per serving of nattokynise.

[00:01:23]And then the other route is the commercial supplement creation. The soybeans are thrown into large vats of liquid that are airrated with these little bubblers so we can have some aerobic fermentation and then you essentially refine that into the nattokynise. you extract that and actually get rid of vitamin K2, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Either of these methods is using a basillus bacteria to create this enzyme. And then for the supplement version, for the amount of natto, we're talking about 2,000 to 10,000 units if you're taking a few capsules with that refined product.

[00:01:57]And it is interesting that it doesn't have to be soybeans, but soybeans are just great for this because this is a protein enzyme and soybeans have a large amount of protein in them. You could try using another bean, but it just wouldn't be as effective probably. But in a high protein environment, that basillus bacteria strain upregulates the production of nattokinise so it can break down more protein, do more digestion. And nattokinise is a type of protease. So it snips apart proteins.

[00:02:26]But this is where things get really interesting to me because not only is this a protein enzyme that cleaves or breaks apart proteins, it also is a protein itself and it is magically absorbed into the bloodstream. It can be broken down as well through digestion which has some other beneficial byproducts but in general it's resistant to the pH level of your stomach and then magically can make it through your intestinal wall. Why do I say magically?

[00:02:55]Because generally we're letting in amino acid chains or peptides of like three or five amino acids long and this is 275 amino acids long. It essentially takes advantage of special gateways using endocytosis where it moves through these cells and we know how this works unfortunately because of animal studies where they give them medications that would block this pathway and their blood levels go down for nattokynise. So when we've detected nattokynise in human blood, it's not from some leaky gut phenomenon where it's getting in when it shouldn't. for some reason, it's able to just hack our body's system and be let in. Like, it's got some magic key.

[00:03:37]However, because of the insanely widespread use of fermenting foods throughout human history, it's not impossible that we evolved to let this in to help out with our health. Who knows? There may be some epidemiology that hints at the beneficial effects of natto. Absolutely. First of all, we have a 2017 study of 30,000 people in Japan.

[00:03:58]I looked at various soy foods and in terms of cardiovascular disease mortality overall, natto was the only soy based food that had a positive result here. And we're talking about a statistically significant 25% lower odds of death from cardiovascular disease in that particular category. No other soy products achieve statistical significance. However, they did in some other areas like mortality from total stroke where total soy protein was associated with 25% lower, but natto was associated with 32% lower. So, outperforming again. So, we're getting hints that a natto is superior for cardiovascular disease than other swipe products, which are already quite beneficial. And then we have another study of 90,000 people here, middle-aged adults, which found a very similar 24% lower total cardiovascular disease related mortality for the highest natto consumers. However, really skimming through all of the numbers here, another one that stuck out was the highest tofu consumers had 26% lower heart disease.

[00:04:57]So, some things are happening for other soy products as well. Soy is clearly just good for you, but soy, especially tofu, can also be a replacement product for animal protein often times. And this is where I briefly want to cover vitamin K2 because natto is the richest dietary source of vitamin K2 in the form of MK7.

[00:05:16]But as I mentioned earlier, the nattokynise supplements remove the vitamin K2. Why do they do this? Because it would be so insanely high to get that amount of nattokynise. And then it could also have some pro-coagulation concerns.

[00:05:31]However, as some of you may know, K2 could also play a role in plaque in particular with calcium. We at least have a randomized control trial which found about a 40% slowing of the progression of coronary artery calcium.

[00:05:45]It didn't reverse it, but it slowed it at least from that study. More studies always needed though. But I can't help but wonder if the K2 and the nattokynise are working together after all in the actual traditional natto that is consumed and associated with the lower disease risk. Anyway, what about actual plaque reversal? We love to see and hear about shrinking plaques. Well, we do have a bunch of animal studies.

[00:06:08]Obviously, you know, I do not like animal studies, but they have consistently shown a reversal of arterial plaque lesions. But this comes with a major caveat because a lot of times in rodents, you can reverse plaques and then that same medicine doesn't reverse plaques in humans because for various reasons, it's easier to shrink plaques in mice. This is the way their metabolism works, how young those plaques are, the size of those plaques, etc. But it appears to work in some of those animals that are given way high levels of cholesterol through like gene altering and super highfat diets, etc. Does it work in humans? Well, this study, which has gotten the most press, certainly claims that it does. They looked at 1,000 individuals over 12 months. But I need to mention this isn't a randomized control trial. There's no placeboc controlled group, etc. It just has records from people that took natto and then had some artery scans of their corateed artery in their neck. They used 2D Doppler ultrasounds to get the imaging and the results are quite shocking. In the highle supplement group of 10,000 units, they had a 36% reduction in corateed artery plaque, which is insane. And importantly, that was not seen in the 2,000 unit group.

[00:07:27]And we need to hop to the conflicts right now because the authors were mostly paid by a company that produces nattokinise supplements. Huge conflict.

[00:07:37]However, they claim that did not sway the results at all. However, I will say something like meat and other animal products constantly having research that is funded by industry. They've never been able to come up with a number like this. So, that's worth mentioning. If only we had a randomized control trial.

[00:07:53]Oh, wait. We do. Unfortunately, there's a flaw with that as well. This one was a couple years before the other study I just mentioned. And well, it was 3 years long. It was longer. It didn't have quite as many people and it found no difference. However, it was using that same 2,000 unit dose that found no results in that last study as well. So, if it had 10,000, then we'd have a real answer. We don't have a real answer. We need more research. If only we cared enough about our leading killer to publicly fund research that is potentially promising in just slashing arterial plaque. But you know there's no money for that. Now I want to start looking at the fascinating mechanisms that are going on here. And we get hints of those in other human studies as well.

[00:08:41]We have multiple studies like this one showing that even a single dose of oral nattokinise lowers these clotting and coagulation factors in humans. We have multiple studies. Another one done on healthy patients found that yes several factors were lowered with nattokinise.

[00:08:59]And this is where we get to what it's actually doing in the body. How it's fascinating and quite well documented.

[00:09:05]However, we don't know to what degree this is really happening on actual arterial lesions in humans. But we have nattokynise itself being a protein snipping enzyme. It's a bit like a little pair of scissors and that is cutting what is called fibbrin which is as it sounds the fibrous caps that form on clots. This is fascinating cuz you might be thinking, "Oh, if it's just going around chopping up our proteins, couldn't that be a concern for doing some damage?" Well, it appears that it targets fibbrin, but just because of the way that it is, it doesn't also chop up collagen or elastin in our healthy cells and our healthy vascular membranes. And then we also have something in our body that chops up fibbrin as well, and that is plasmine. Kind of like a plasma cutter, which is really fun to use if you've ever used one, just chopping up metal. But nattokynise boosts plasmine in two ways. It first of all increases the amount of plasmine that is created.

[00:10:04]Does that again through snipping this time prokynise complicated terms here but that boosts plasmine production. And then on the other side it stops the breaks on plasmine in terms of PI1 which is an inhibitor. Again complicated terms but it's a onetwo punch of keeping plasmine high as well. So it's cutting the fibbrin directly and then it is helping increase plasmine which is cutting the fibbrin also and they cut it on different points. So again a one-two punch again maybe that will be a three four punch. However well nattokynise in blood can directly make contact with fibbrin in clots that are newly formed which is huge cuz that's how most people usually die here. Long-term lesions contain fibbrin that is protected under collagen under the cap of the lesion. So the effect would have to be more from upregulating plasmine that would be inside of the lesion, not directly chopping it from the bloodstream. It's obviously changing our body's natural process here or boosting it, but then it's doing it in a way that isn't increasing risk of having a clot or something like that. Now, we can get to the concerns. Of course, you want to talk to your doctor before taking this.

[00:11:18]And that is especially the case for people that are taking any type of drug that changes the viscosity of your blood cuz this could also do that. It also has an anti-platelet aggregation effect as this study mentions. So again, we have to cross-check that. And I have found some warnings to not take it 2 weeks prior to having surgery of any kind. And that's because that anti-platelet aggregation could increase blood flow and maybe bleeding. But going to the argument made by that men's health article interviewing an expert, they actually say, hey, it's quite safe and well tolerated in the human studies that we have, but really that there aren't enough human studies to know whether it's worth taking for healthy people, worth spending your money on. So money was kind of the main concern here. And they even say if your doctor is recommending to take it, then you should take it. But this just brings me to the really frustrating point again. It's possible that a high dose of this stuff in a year can chop off 35% over a third of your arterial plaque or that it doesn't yet we're seemingly not doing more studies on it. So that's really frustrating. At least they're not out yet. But just an optimistic hope for humanity of mine is that this does work and that this will be something that is prescribed for people with large amounts of arterial plaque in the future. Again though, we have the whole calcification issue. What can this do against that?

[00:12:39]Now, those plaques are almost more akin to bone. And because of that, they're less likely to rupture and cause issues, but still over time can reduce blood flow. It's also really not going to help your arteries dilate. But in terms of soft plaques, if we're seeing hope for that, that would be a win as it is. So, in the end, this is promising but not proven. We have animal results, which often don't apply to humans. We have human results that are funded by industry. We have other randomized control trial results that aren't using a high enough dose. So, we can notto be so sure that this is really doing anything. But again, still hopeful. What do you think about this? I'm leaving it open-ended for you guys. Do you think it's enough of evidence to see reversal in any study, even if it is a retrospective nonrandomized control trial industry funded study? Type in the comments below. And of course, one last time, if you have any interest in this Mexico City trip that we are going to go on in October, vegan tour, you can just click the link below and use my code Mike 100 for 100 bucks off. And as usual, feel free to like the video, subscribe, all that good stuff. And I'll see you in the next one. Thanks for watching.

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