Many people have heard of vitamin K, and recognise that it is one of the important vitamins that we need to include in our diet. What most people are unclear of, however, is how vitamin K is beneficial to our wellness and wellbeing.
One positive effect of vitamin K is that it is required by the body to help with this important job of blood clotting. This is massively important when the body needs to heal wounds, as without it, even the most minor cut or scrape could cause the human body to bleed to death.
There is also an increasing body of evidence to support the theory that vitamin K may be used to help the body to form strong bones.
Vitamin K can be found in a large variety of different types of food. In particular, green, leafy vegetables such as spinach or broccoli are absolutely loaded with vitamin K. It can also be found in various types of vegetable oils and is often found in many different types of breakfast cereals. Vitamin K can also be found in some dairy products and meat foods, although to a much smaller extent.
Adults need roughly 0.001mg of vitamin K each day for each kilogram that they weigh – for example, if someone weighs 65kg, they would need 0.065mg of vitamin K in their diet each day, whilst someone who weighed ten kilos more would need 0.01mg vitamin K per day.
A healthy, balanced diet should include all the vitamin K that you need, but some people also like to top this up with a daily supplement. You should be careful not to take vitamin K to excess, although no harmful effects are known from taking too much. Your liver also stores vitamin K, so you don’t need to worry if you go a day or two without it in your diet as you will be able to use your reserves.
Comments are closed.