Vitamin K is an important fat-soluble vitamin that plays critical roles in protecting your heart, building your bones, optimizing your insulin levels, and helping your blood to clot properly. Vitamin K plays a key role in helping the blood clot, preventing excessive bleeding. Unlike many other vitamins, vitamin K is not typically used as a dietary supplement. Vitamin K is a micronutrient which is required by the body in small amounts but is still necessary for the healthy functioning of many organs.
Types of Vitamin K are the following:
- Vitamin K1 is found naturally in plants, especially green vegetable. K1 goes directly to your liver and helps you maintain healthy blood clotting.
- Vitamin K2 is made by the bacteria that line your gastrointestinal tract. K2 goes straight to your blood vessel walls, bones, and tissues other than your liver.
- Vitamin K3 is a synthetic form I do not recommend, it’s important to note that toxicity has occurred in infants injected with this synthetic vitamin K3.x
Health Benefits of Vitamin K:
- Although there are many reasons for excessive menstrual flow in women, deficiency in vitamin K is also one of them. Taking supplements of Vitamin K can reduce the excessive flow of blood during menstruation as it will reduce the amount of blood flowing out of the body.
- Vitamin K is an important factor in bone health and wound healing. Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that makes proteins for healthy bones and normal blood clotting. Vitamin K helps produce four of the 13 proteins needed for blood clotting.
- Vitamin K helps to prevent hardening of the arteries, which is a common factor in coronary artery disease and heart failure. Vitamin K may help to keep calcium out of your artery linings and other body tissues, where it can cause damage.
- Many researchers have shown that Vitamin K2 completely reverses bone loss and in some cases even increases bone mass in people with osteoporosis. Vitamin K2 is three times more effective than vitamin K1 in raising osteocalcin, which controls the building of bone.
- Pregnant women who suffer excessive vomiting and nausea during pregnancy are usually deficient in Vitamin K. If they intake supplements of this vitamin, it will help in reducing these symptoms in pregnant women. It will also have a positive impact on the mental and physical health of the unborn child.
Read more: Does Vitamin E Really Helps in Weight Loss?
Reported by Dr. Himani