Vitamin K - Benefits, Deficiency Symptoms And Food Sources

The vitamin K is also one of the fat soluble vitamins and it is also known with the name antihaemorrhagic factor. The person who discovered this vitamin is known as Dam. He discovered this vitamin after carrying out lots of studies on the haemorrhagic disease in number of chickens in the period between 1930 to 1933.

Basically there are two types of the vitamin K which occur naturally. One of them is vitamin K1 which popularly known as phyllouinone or phytonadione and the vitamin K2 which is popularly known as flavinoquinone.

This vitamin is very much soluble in fat and fatty acids. Vitamin K is also stand cooking because it is really very stable with the heat or you can say temperature. Vitamin K1 is basically oil which is popularly known as the viscid oil which is yellow in color, but the vitamin K2 is actually a crystalline solid which is yellow in color. But the limitations with the vitamin K are that it is very easily destroyed by the alkali, light and alcohol. Alcohol should be avoided in order to keep the quantity of the vitamin K intact inside their body which in turn offers them strength to live easily.

Sources of Vitamin K

The vegetable sources which are rich in vitamin K are soyabin, tomato, spinach, cabbage and alfalfa etc. with the help of number of bile salts and juices this vitamin is absorbed from the intestines of human body. Although most of the putrefied plants and animals does not contain good amount of vitamin K but still they have considerable amount which can fulfill your need for the time being.

The vitamin K is the only vitamin present in this world which can also be produced by the synthetic processes or you can say that it can be produced synthetically. Under very normal circumstances intestinal bacteria which are normally present in the intestine synthesize the adequate amount of the vitamin K. it has also been seen that in many people who have high concentration of vitamin A the bacterial synthesis of the vitamin K and it also produces the interference in haemorrhagic and prothrombinaemia manifestations. Human milk does not contain any amount of vitamin K but cow’s milk is one of the best source of vitamin k. Vitamin k is basically stored in the liver. And liver is the most important organ of the body and in order to function properly it needs or requires the vitamin K in a very good or adequate quantity.

Function of vitamin K

It really helps our body in order to maintain the proper formation of the normal prothrombin and the factor VII inside our blood and thus very actively in the normal coagulation. It has been proved that the vitamin K actually acts as one of the prosthetic group to an enzyme called apoenzyme in order to produce holoenzyme. So try to add more food products in your diet which contain good amount of vitamin K in them.