USANA Essential Tips

Posts Tagged ‘vitamin k’

Vitamin K is essential for the blood to clot to repair injuries, so whenever a person has a bleeding wound, it is the K vitamin that is present in the blood that stops the bleeding and enables most minor cuts to heal quickly. All three of these types of K vitamin end up in the liver where it is used to create the blood clotting substances.

There are three different forms of the K vitamin.

• Vitamin K1- also known as phylloquinone, this is the form of the K vitamin that is found in types of plant foods. Vitamin K found in plant foods.
• Vitamin K2, or menaquinone is formed by friendly bacteria in the intestines.
• Vitamin K3 – also known as menadione and is actually an artificial form of the K vitamin.

Natural sources of the K vitamin are green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, because the friendly bacteria in the intestine makes one of the forms of the K vitamin it is extremely rare for a person to have a deficiency of the K vitamin and so K vitamin supplements are not needed.

Vitamin K, specifically the Vitamin K1, has an important part to play in the bone building process requiring to retain the calcium in the bones and redistribute it to where it is needed.

Vitamin K deficiency is relatively rare there are certain groups of people who may suffer from it. Newborn babies may not have enough of the K vitamin as they have insufficient bacteria in their intestines to produce it.