Vitamin K is an essential vitamin found in foods like cauliflower, spinach and other green leafy vegetables, soybeans as well as cereals. Vitamin K also occurs naturally in the body as a byproduct of bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. It is fat soluble, so the body stores it in fat tissues and the liver.
Blood Clotting
Vitamin K is essential primarily because the body needs it for blood clotting. Specifically, it helps to synthesize 4 of the 13 essential proteins for blood coagulation. Accordingly, vitamin K is a coagulant. In fact, the "K" derives from the German word, "koagulation." Deficiency in vitamin K is rare, but can occur mildly as a result of antibiotic use. Symptoms of a deficiency include excessive bleeding, which may begin in the gums or nose.
Maintain Bone Health
Vitamin K is necessary for proper calcium absorption. It may help prevent the onset of osteopenia leading to osteoporosis in menopausal women, and may enhance bone strength and resilience in healthy people, such as athletes, as well as promote bone health in the elderly.
Treatment
Doctors and nutritionists often use vitamin K to treat various associated with clotting and bleeding. Such conditions include malabsorption syndromes, bleeding liver disease and deficiencies resulting from the long-term use of antibiotics. Newborns in the United States and Great Britain receive vitamin K intravenously just after delivery to prevent brain hemorrhaging because vitamin K is not easily transported across the placental barrier and babies aren't born with the bacteria in their intestines necessary to produce vitamin K. Newborns who are only breast-fed are at increased risk of vitamin K deficiency, because human milk is relatively low in vitamin K compared to baby formula.
Dosage
Adequate daily dosages of vitamin K vary by age and condition. Typically, babies between birth and 6 months should receive 2 micrograms daily. Infants 6 months to 1 year should receive 2.5 micrograms. Toddlers should receive 3 micrograms per day until they are 4, when they should receive 55 micrograms per day. Once they are 9, they should have 60 micrograms per day until they are 14, when this increases to 75 micrograms. Adult males should receive 120 micrograms of vitamin K per day, while adult women should have 90 micrograms. Pregnant and breastfeeding women should ingest the amount appropriate for their age groups.
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