The amplification of vitamin K is that it is produced in the intestinal tracks of our body and is a fat soluble vitamin. Vitamin K substantiates the absorption of calcium from food and it assists in forming and maintaining healthy bones. It also helps in the control of severe blood loss caused by injury.

The effect of side effects and for which what we should do to prevent the same?

There is an unknown toxicity for being associated with high doses of menaquinone (vitamin K2), phylloquinone (vitamin K1), or menadione (vitamin K3) and its derivations. However, a word of caution has to be maintained in the fact that a high intake of vitamin K is not recommended for persons taking medications which are anticoagulant in nature if you want to get higher intake from food sources then vitamin K can be derived either from food or through its synthesis effect in the intestinal tracks of the body. Vitamin K which is available in plant food is known as phylloquinone. In foods which are connected with animal related food contain menaquinone. The bacteria available in the intestine can also help in producing vitamin K.

What happens when there is deficiency in vitamin K?

Vitamin K deficiency occurs in deficiency because of deficiency in the breast milk in new born babies and also results in excessive bleeding of affected wounds. In children it provides a lot of abnormalities in nasal bridge by making it flat, short noses and fingers which get shortened. In adults, there is a deficiency to the effect that vitamin K rarity occurs. It is mostly found in human beings who are suffering from mal absorption of fats from dietary sources. Under the circumstances the best course of action is to consult your physician or doctor or dietician or health professionals who are capable of advising on supplementation.

Researchers claim that intake of vitamin K is a preventive measure against inflammation to some extent, which is a part and parcel of many serious illnesses like cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis.

The researchers did a study on men and women around the age 59 and 52 percent amongst them were women. It was conducted on almost 1,381 people, basically to find out how much level of vitamin K they had in their blood and if they started taking vitamin K1 and vitamin D supplements, what difference it gave them in the immunity power to fight against inflammation?

Researchers found that intake of vitamin KI supplements and supplements used to increase the blood count are very much responsible for reducing 14 inflammation types. Even if you ignore the fact that this analysis or study is taken of heart patients, its still found to reduce 5 types of inflammation types amongst normal people without any kind of disease, moreover 4 percent reduction in serum osteoprotegerin concentration, 3 percent reduction in intracellular adhesion molecule-1 concentration, a 4 percent reduction in tumor necrosis factor receptor-2, a 15 percent reduction in CD40 ligand and 8 percent reduction in interleukin-6 concentration.

The intake of Vitamin D showed a decline in only one inflammation-prone disease known as urinary isoprostane.

Researchers found that there was a difference if there was difference in body mass index, use of drugs including aspirin or statins, whether female participants were using hormone replacement therapy after menopause, age, sex and time of year.

There are 3 forms of Vitamin K: phytonadione or phylloquinone, this is the type 1 K vitamin, which is known as vitamin K1. Vitamin K1 is found mainly in leafy vegetables, which includes lettuce, spinach and broccoli. Menaquinones, this is the type 2 K vitamin and is mostly found in fermented food products and meat. Vitamin K3 is not recommended for humans, since it comes in a synthetic form.

Vitamin K deficiency is often found in newborns as vitamin k is found a little in mother’s milk and provides almost 20% of a baby’s requirement. Similarly, vitamin K-producing bacteria are not found in infants’ intestines and they are born with less levels of vitamin K in their bodies.
In adults vitamin K deficiency is rarely found. Sometimes it occurs in those people who suffer such diseases as prevent the absorption of fat in the body. It can also occur in the adults who are treated with antibiotics that kill vitamin K-producing bacteria which live in their intestine.

vitamin K deficiency Diagnosis

Prothrombin time test is used to measure vitamin k status in the body. 13 second is considered normal prothrombin time and this time reaches to several minutes in patients with vitamin k deficiency. In this test a sample of blood is taken and placed in a machine known as fibrometer and the time of blood-clot formation is measures. A rare genetic disease known as hemophilia also caused blood coagulation.

vitamin K deficiency Treatment

In infants, vitamin K deficiency is prevented and treated with a phylloquinone (5mg) injection while daily oral doses of 10mg phylloquinone is used for one week to treat adults.

The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for this fat-soluble vitamin is 80 mg /day for adult man, for adult woman it is 65 mg/day while for babies it is 5 mg/day. Vitamin K whose source is plant foods is known as phylloquinone while the form of vitamin K found in animal food is known as menaquinone. Both these forms are collected from the food and changed into an active form known as dihydrovitamin K.
Bacteria living in the intestine also provide a portion of the body’s vitamin k.

Diet containing warfarin (a blood thinner that is used to bring calcium buildup) was fed to 10-week old male rats by Schurgers and colleagues. These rats were divided into four groups: the first group was fed with warfarin and the other three groups were fed with warfarin-free diet. Different doses of Vitamin K were offered to these three groups and the researchers found that even after the mitigation of warfarin effects, arterial calcium levels were on increase in the group that was fed with the normal dose of Vitamin K.

Contrarily, in the groups that were fed with high quantities of vitamin K1 and K2 the progress of further calcium accumulation was found blocked but more than 37% decrease in previously accumulated arterial calcium was also noted.

The findings have great relevance for those who take blood-thinner medicines that bring arterial calcification by making a protein GLA or MPG inactive. MPG is a powerful inhibitor of calcification and it requires vitamin k for its activation

Vitamin K is abundantly found in various food items like soybeans, dark green vegetables including kale, spinach, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Similarly, olives and many other oils have sufficient amount of Vitamin K. Such food supplements are also available that include required dosage of vitamin K for human body.