Menaquinone-7 and height growth in children over time
What it found
In a study of 1150 children in Vietnam, those taking menaquinone-7 supplements did not grow taller straight away, but over longer follow-up they tended to gain height a little faster each month than children who did not take them.
The authors say this link should be treated with caution.
What they found
Studies in people
Height gain over time
In all children, height gain increased with longer follow-up, by about 0.49 to 0.58 cm per month. This was seen in both the control and supplement groups.
Supplement alone
Taking menaquinone-7 was not by itself linked to greater height gain. The authors say the pattern looked time-dependent rather than an immediate effect.
Interaction with time
In the whole group, there was a small positive interaction between menaquinone-7 use and follow-up duration, meaning the monthly rate of height gain was slightly higher in children taking the supplement. The estimate was 0.05 cm per month.
Pre-puberty children
Positive interactions were seen in children who had not started puberty (0.05 cm per month) and in the pre-puberty group (0.06 cm per month). The largest was in pre-puberty boys (0.10 cm per month).
Girls
Among girls in the pre-puberty subgroup, no statistically significant interaction was seen between menaquinone-7 use and height gain over time.
Other findings
Follow-up imbalance
Far fewer control children returned for later visits, so most long-term observations came from children taking menaquinone-7. Because of this, the main analyses were limited to the first two visits.
What the authors conclude
“The findings suggest that continuous MK-7 supplementation may be associated with progressively greater height gain over time rather than an immediate increase in height.”
Also in their conclusions
- They say the findings suggest that continuous menaquinone-7 supplementation may be associated with progressively greater height gain over time rather than an immediate increase in height.
- They advise that the findings should be interpreted cautiously and not considered evidence of causality because of the observational design and follow-up imbalance.
- They call for further prospective studies with balanced longitudinal follow-up to clarify the potential relationship between menaquinone-7 supplementation and children's linear growth.
How it was done
The authors say that evidence on whether menaquinone-7 is related to height growth in children is limited, and no well-designed clinical studies have directly looked at this. They wanted to fill that gap.
They followed 1150 apparently healthy children aged 6 to 14 in Hanoi, Vietnam, from 2022 to 2025. Of these, 613 were controls and 537 took menaquinone-7 at 360 µg per day by mouth. They collected 3491 height measurements over time.
What it can’t tell you
- This was an observational study, so it can show links but not prove that menaquinone-7 caused any difference in height.
- The two groups were not randomly assigned, and children who took the supplement differed in some lifestyle habits at the start, so other factors may explain the results.
- Many children in the control group did not return for later visits, so the long-term comparisons are less reliable.
Who paid
- Conflicts
- Authors Hop Xuan Nguyen and Anh Viet Nguyen were employed by Midu MenaQ7 Joint Stock Company. They did not have any primary role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of results, manuscript preparation, or decision to publish. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
- Authors work at
- Hanoi Medical University, Vietnam; Duy Tan University, Vietnam; Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
The paper
- Title
- Longitudinal Height Growth Patterns Among Children Receiving Menaquinone-7 Supplementation
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY. Words in quotation marks are the authors’; the rest is our summary.
- Cite
- Nguyen ND, Nguyen HX, Nguyen NH, et al (2026). Longitudinal Height Growth Patterns Among Children Receiving Menaquinone-7 Supplementation. Nutrients. doi:10.3390/nu18121979Free full textPubMed 42356365DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error