As the popularity into fermented cod liver oil/ fermented butter oil grows, I am getting asked more and more about activator-X, more specifically – what is it, and why is it so special?
When you read Western Prices accounts, activator-x does sound a bit magical and far fetched to the point that it sounds a bit like a marketing spiel similar to the ones we have heard from Patrick Halford and his AIDS curing vitamin C tablets…But its not.
The truth is activator-x is actually vitamin K2, which is also known as menatetrenone or MK-4. During the time of Western Price this vitamin was unknown, and so was called activator-x.
So, why is this so special? Well, vitamin K2 is the animal form of vitamin K, and is very rare in nature. Food sources are only certain fermented foods such as fermented soy and some cheese, neither of which are abundant in our diet. Instead, we obtain most of our vitamin K from leafy greens (which aren’t abundant in our diet either), but this vitamin K is in the form of K1, and so our body must be convert it into K2 before it can be used. This conversion is not very efficient, and varies dramatically from person to person.
Vitamin K is one of the lesser known vitamins, but this doesn’t make it any less valuable, in fact, as more is learnt about vitamin K the more valuable it is. primarily, it is involved in maintaining bone density (to a similar extent as that of vitamin D3) and blood coagulation. Vitamin K also acts as a co-factor for a number of biological reactions, and a deficiency of it is associated with increased incidence of diseases such as cancer.
We are lucky in that our probiotic population do produce some vitamin K2 in our digestive system which we can absorb, however, this isn’t enough to maintain true health, and as everyone’s probiotic population varies so much, is not a fail-safe. As a result of this the majority of the Western world is mildly deficient in vitamin K (not really a surprise though with modern diets).
And so this is why activator-x is so important. It is a rare, non-synthetic and extremely beneficial form of vitamin K, which much of the population can benefit from.
It may seem odd that it is still called activator-x by some people, and to be honest, I think Green Pastures (who make the butter oil) simply continue to call it activator-x because they like the way it suggests mystical and magical properties. For more ‘sciencey’ people though it is actually vitamin K2 (menatetrenone).
