“Vitamin K is also produced by the bacteria in our gut.” “Vitamin K is absorbed in the small intestine, concentrated in the liver, and dispersed throughout the body to various tissue and organs (e.g., liver, brain, heart, pancreas and bone),” Sollid explains. Once you’ve downed a dinner of pork chops and greens or natto and broccoli, your body gets to work absorbing and distributing vitamin K. How your body absorbs vitamin K from food Brussels sprouts, cooked: 109 mcg (91% DV)įoods high in vitamin K2, per 3.5-ounce serving:.Mustard greens, cooked: 415 mcg (346% DV).Try any of the following foods to get your fill of K for the day.įoods high in vitamin K1, per 1/2-cup serving: Here’s a general rule for vitamin K-rich foods: K1 comes mostly from plants, K2 mostly from animals. But since K1 and K2 in food and supplements have your bases covered, you definitely don’t need to worry about missing this artificial vitamin. As a result, it can increase oxidative damage to your cells - the exact opposite of all that antioxidant-rich eating you may try to do.Ĭonsidering all these concerns, it’s no surprise that K3 isn’t sold as a dietary supplement. (Yeah, we’ll pass on all that, thanks.)Īnother unpleasant side effect? K3 can interfere with one of your body’s naturally occurring antioxidants, glutathione. In fact, as an injection, K3 has been known to induce liver toxicity, jaundice, and anemia from ruptured blood cells. Although it was sometimes used as a dietary supplement in the 20th century, research on K3 in the ’80s and ’90s revealed that it could cause liver damage. Unfortunately, artificial vitamin K3 isn’t just unnatural, it’s actually harmful to humans. ![]() Mmm- kay, so what’s so wrong with the synthetic form of vitamin K? Plenty of other vitamins get created safely in labs. These forms of vitamin K are also found in multivitamins. K2, on the other hand, is found in animal products and some fermented foods. K1 comes from plants - primarily leafy greens and a few oils. You can load up on both vitamin K1 and vitamin K2 through a variety of foods. “Vitamin K2 also improves bone quality, is involved in calcium transport, and prevents calcium deposition in blood vessel walls,” says dietitian Kris Sollid, RDN, senior director of nutrition communications at the International Food Information Council. ![]() (Fun fact: The “K” comes from the German word “koagulation.”)īoth K1 and K2 are involved in blood clotting, but K2 goes the extra mile. It’s most famous for helping your blood clot, which keeps you from bleeding excessively from wounds large and small. ![]() Vitamin K has several important jobs in your body. Two forms of vitamin K - K1 and K2 - can be found naturally in food, unlike vitamin K3, which is created in a lab. K3 sounds like a mountain peak in the Himalayas that rivals K2, but vitamin K3 (aka menadione) is actually a synthetic version of vitamin K.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |