Vitamin K

Vitamin k belongs to the fat soluble category of essential nutrients for the body. Functions for vitamin k include blood clotting and healthy bone support. A recommended amount of vitamin k is 80mcg from different sources of vitamin k. Natural sources of vitamin k can include foods high in vitamin k such as green leafy vegetables. These green leafy foods with vitamin k can be kale, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, turnip greens and cauliflower. Other vitamin k containing foods are certain vegetable oils including canola oil, olive oil and soybean oil. Again another list of foods high in Vitamin k is found in our daily nutrition. These foods containing vitamin k are organ meats, some fruits like kiwi and bananas, cow milk, dairy products and even parsley. It is important to add foods with vitamin k such as eggs and soy products to your diet to fulfill nutritional requirements of the body. All the so far mentioned foods contain a vitamin k1 (phylloquinone), the major dietary from of vitamin k. Vitamin k2 has sources such as chicken, egg yolk, liver, cheese, butter and fermented soy products.

In many countries so far at birth infants usually got a vitamin k injection. The thought behind this shot is prevention since newborns can lack the ability to produce vitamin k from the nutrition through lack of bacteria in the intestinal tract. Since this is very rarely the case, parents more and more often choose not to give their newborn this shot.

Vitamin k deficiency can lead in general to hemorrhaging of the skin and other body parts due to not clotting of the blood. Therefore phytonadione (a vitamin k medication/supplement) is used to prevent bleeding in people with blood clotting problems or people with too little vitamin K in their body.

Another medical use of vitamin k is vitamin k cream. With its organic and botanical oxidants it is supposed to be an excellent treatment for troubled skin, spider veins, a scar, itchy skin and bruises. It is supposed to promote faster healing after surgery and make spider veins disappear, but research and studies have not completely proven this matter.

A small tidbit about the naming of this letter comes from Germany. Vitamin k was discovered together with cholesterol and at that time called the coagulation vitamin. It did receive the letter K since it first was published in German magazines as "Koagulationsvitamin".


As with every other vitamin, vitamin k is important and is best added to the body through natural food sources.