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Fara 27 September 2009 General Health, Nutritions 158 views No Comment/Trackback Print This Post  Email This Post

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Functions of Vitamin K with List of Foods High in Vitamin K

There are many reasons why Vitamin K is unique and very much different from any other Vitamins available. It isn’t as well-known as Vitamin C, neither it is easily calculated in most foods. Most food tables and labels do not include Vitamin K contents of foods because they are not well enough known.

Functions of Vitamin K

Have you ever been injured before with minor grazes or cuts where bleeding involved? Well, have you ever noticed and find out how remarkable it is that blood can clot? If it fails to do so, can you imagine how much blood you might lose after a long while even if the cut is small? What will happen to you consequently? A huge loss of blood can be fatal. Vitamin K is fundamentally the essential and initial key in attending this problem. It is needed for the synthesis of proteins that help clot the blood. That is the reason why vitamin K is often administered before operations and surgery to reduce the amount of bleeding.

Infants and newborn are the group that are usually at risk of vitamin K deficiency whereby the risk of its deficiency among adults are identified as significantly much lower. There are a few symptoms that you can notice on your own whether you are lacking of vitamin K or not. Symptoms such as easily bruised, excessive and frequent bleeding of gum, heavy menstruation and anemia simply recall that you might at risk of having low dose of vitamin K.

Nevertheless, that is not the only function of vitamin K, but that indeed is the main use of this vitamin. Vitamin K is also necessary for the synthesis of a key protein found in plasma, kidney and especially as part of bone formation, which together with the existence of vitamin D, it is a vitamin that ensures the bones produce protein normally so that the bones in our body are able to bind minerals that they need properly. That may be one reason why a person with low level of vitamin K are prone to having Osteoperosis.

Another useful part of vitamin K is that it can be applied topically as a 5% cream, primarily in order to diminish postoperative bruising from cosmetic surgery and injection, broken capillaries (bruises), spider veins, treating rosacea, dark circle around the eye and hyperpigmentation.

Source of Vitamin K

This vitamin, similar to vitamin D, can be obtained from a nonfood source. If vitamin D is produced by the skin, vitamin K is with the help of the intestinal bacteria in the large intestine. Billions of bacteria reside in our intestine, and some of them synthesize vitamin K. Besides that, Vitamin K can also be obtained from several food source such as liver, dark green and leafy vegetables, meats, eggs, fruits and milk.

The recommended amount of Vitamin K for adult male is about 70-80 micrograms, and for adult female is around 60-65 micrograms. Since it is part of the fat soluble group of vitamins, excess vitamin K can be stored in fatty tissue of the human body. While other types of vitamin K deemed to be free from being toxic associated due to high doses, there is one particular type of vitamin K that has shown to be toxic. It is vitamin K3(menadione), which has been banned from sale as over-the-counter supplements product.

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