Vitamin K2

If you are doing research on bone health, you for sure will come across vitamin k2 and you are wondering: “What is vitamin k2?”. Vitamin k2 is a compound belonging to the vitamin k family. It is just like vitamin k fat soluble. Another name for the compound vitamin k2 is menaquinone.

Vitamin k2s benefits for the body are bone and cardiovascular health and it is also a very powerful antioxidant.

A healthy body and intestinal tract can produce vitamin k by itself, but not very sufficiently. Therefore it needs to be supplied through a healthy balanced diet or even supplements. Vitamin k is slightly different in its properties from other fat soluble vitamins such as a, d and e. It cannot be stored in the body for a period of time to have a small stash. If vitamin k is supplied through food, only 5-10 percent of vitamin k1 is actually absorbed into the body. But on the other hand vitamin k2 will be absorbed 100 percent from food. Since it cannot be stored in the fatty tissues, it can sustain longer in the bloodstream. Vitamin k2 can sustain in the blood for several days, while vitamin k1 will only sustain for a few hours.

As with all the other vitamins natural sources for vitamin k2 is food. Foods high in vitamin k2 are more rare than foods with vitamin k2 and therefore though absorbed 100 percent it is likely that a supplement is needed. Vitamin k2 can be found in some natural and fermented soy products.

Vitamin k2 is one of the more expensive supplements to produce and therefore is not contained in many multivitamins but rather sold separately.

Carlson laboratories are one of the supplement suppliers and manufacturers that will provide vitamin k2 as a supplement. Carlson vitamin k2 capsules contain as much as 5mg vitamin k2 in their product.

Studies have also shown that vitamin k2 that vitamin k2 helps in reducing coronary heart disease through decreasing cholesterol in the blood stream.

Overdoses of vitamin k2 are normally not toxic for healthy human beings and it will not lead to higher than normal blood clotting.

Vitamin k2 is especially important for pregnant women since several birth defects have been found to be linked to vitamin k deficiencies.

Research showed that vitamin k2 can also be helpful with osteoporosis through its ability to prevent or reduce bone fractures in the human skeleton. In Japan where foods are rich of soy and fermented soy products vitamin k2 levels in bodies are very high and bones are healthy.