To Give or Not to Give...That is the K Question?!

An article I read in Midwifery Today Magazine was quite interesting regarding giving babies vitamin k at birth to prevent Vitamin K deficiency Bleeding or VKDB. Read the article at the link below and tell me what you think.


http://www.midwiferytoday.com/enews/enews0344.asp#main

To Give or Not To Give..That is the K Question?

Keeping Up with K

I absolutely love this article posted in the online Le Magazine. The author does a wonderful job in covering Vitamin K, what it is and all of its uses. She breaks the article down into things liek Vitamin K and bone health, Vitamin K and anti-aging, Vitamin K and Alzheimers. This is really good stuff and way too important for me to just outline. If you want to know anything about Vitamin K, this is truly your one stop shop! There are things you may have never even heard of, and she even explains why you haven't.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2000/feb00-report.html

Another Reason to Eat Your Greens!

This article on the United States Department of Agriculture further supports some studies done by Booth and in further tracking vitamin k in relation to bone health. It also has a great link to a Nutrient List that allows you to quickly type in any type of food and see what and how much nutrients there are in that item.


http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2007/070801.htm

Systems A Go!

I have been fighting this BLOG foe weeks! Finally I got IT to let me invite other readers so you can all post comments. I kept entering in email addresses and teh system wouldn't except it. I apologize to those who attempted to view and comment, and thank many of you who sent me messages to let me know. The problem is fixed so I hope to read your commetns soon!

What's Cancer Got to Do with It?

I found this really interesting article that not only gives a great history on Vitamin K and its uses for coagulation and bone health, but gives insight to how it is being used as an aid to cancer treatment.

http://www.canceractive.com/page.php?n=507

Hyrdogenation Effects the Impact of Vitamin K

The same group that conducted the study on Vitamin K and its effects on bone mass density in both men and women gave some interesting topics and conclusions in another study. This too was also posted in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study looked at the effects of hydrogenated plant forms of vitamin k on bone resorption and formation. The study's objective was "to compare the biological effects of phylloquinone and its hydrogenated form, dihydrophylloquinone, on vitamin K status and markers of bone formation and resorption" ( Booth). The study found that plant oils that are hyrodenated decrease not only the biological effect of vitamin k in bone, but the absorption of it as well.


Source Cited:
Booth,Sarah L, Alice H Lichtenstein, Maureen O'Brien-Morse, Nicola M McKeown, Richard J Wood, Edward Saltzman and Caren M Gundberg.American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:Effects of a hydrogenated form of vitamin K on bone formation and resorption.Vol. 74, No. 6, 783-790, December 2001

Vitamin K for Men and Women

According to a study I read about in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, low dietary intake was indeed associated with low Bone Mass Density in women. This finding from this specific study was consistent with the results that low dietary vitamin k intake is associated with increased risk of hip fracture. However, the specific study was done to see the effects of Vitamin K intake on bone mass density on both men and women, and as I stated before there was an association for women, but none for men. The article from the study itself states, "Higher dietary phylloquinone intakes were associated with higher BMD measures at the hip and spine in the women. These significant associations persisted even after covariates such as age, BMI, alcohol intake, energy intake, caffeine intake, dietary and supplemental intakes of calcium and vitamin D, physical activity, smoking status, current estrogen use, and menopause status were controlled for. In contrast, dietary phylloquinone intake was not significantly associated with any of the BMD sites in the men" (Booth).


Booth, Sarak L, Katherine L Tucker, Honglei Chen, Marian T Hannan, David R Gagnon, L Adrienne Cupples, Peter WF Wilson, Jose Ordovas, Ernst J Schaefer, Bess Dawson-Hughes and Douglas P Kiel. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Dietary Vitamin K Intakes Are Associated with Hip Fractures. Vol. 71, No. 5, 1201-1208, May 2000.

The sKinny on vitamin K!

Going into this course I really had no real previous knowledge or education on Vitamin K. When going over the options for possible blog topics it just kept standing out to me. Then I went for and decided that the whole idea for these blogs is to get to know more about the topic we choose and fill others in as well.

Now it probably would have been easier to find topics on calcium or protein in relation to Optimal Bone and Muscle development, but ti wouldn't be, at least for me much of a learning experience. So hear is the sKinny on Vitamin K to get you all started!



What is vitamin K many may be asking? Well first of all there are two main forms. Those forms are phylloquinone and menaquinone. Phylloquinone is where most of us get about 90% fo our vitamin K, according to Nutra-Ingredients USA, and the other 10% comes from menaquinone.

Phylloquinone is also known as phytonadione or vitamin K1. This is found mostly in green leafy vegetables, such as broccoli, spinach, lettuce and more. Vitamin K1 is found in chicken, egg yolk, cheese, and cow liver. Now menaquinones are vitamin K2 and come from the gut where they are synthesized by micro flora. They can also be found in things we consume in our diets like animal meat, fermented foods like cheese and fermented soy products called natto.

Why do we need vitamin K in our diets? Well lets put it in terms of detriment. If you have a vitamin K deficiency it could lead to cartilage calcification, massive and uncontrolled internal bleeding, as well as malformation of developing bone.

According to everyone's wonderful source of quick information, Wikipedia, our daily intake of vitamin K is easily obtained. The U.S Dietary Reference Intake for Adequate Intake for a male 25 years in age is approximately 120 micrograms each day. However, it is not necessary to consume a daily intake because of the body stores it on its own. Too make it more understandable just how easy it is too get your daily intake look at this following comment :

Two tablespoons of parsley contains 153% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin K.

Just a little bit to get you all thinking...

My Apologies

First of all I would like to apologize for not getting my blod up to date and available for viewing this past few weeks. I had some problems with Blogger and being able to first of all sign in to my Blog, and second of all being able to actually retain and save my posts to the site.

Everytime I tried to enter a new psot it would type up like normal, but when I went to publish what I had written all of it would disappear. I got all of the kinks worked out with Blogger and am up and running finally. Over the next week I will be trying to update my Blog with all of the information I had tried and intended to get up by lsat week so keep checking back in.

Thanks for your time, patience and viewing of The Vitamin K Korner!