Vitamin K

            When you first hear the words Vitamin K, I"m sure you think of a vitamin that helps the body in someway. Researchers and scientist have started studying vitamin K in more depth and are finding more important facts about the vitamin.
             Vitamin K can be found in most green leafy vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, kale, and broccoli. Anne McClenon tells us that Vitamin K can be found in three basic forms. Vitamin K1 and K2 are found in nature and are hydrophobic. Vitamin K1 is present in green plants while K2 is produced by intestinal bacteria. The last kind is K3; it is synthetic, water soluble, less effective than K1 and K2, toxic and no longer in use. K1 and K2 are used by intramuscular injections. Another study done in the Netherlands found in the Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine, looked at all the different types of food. They found out that like all the other studies vitamin K most comes from green leafy vegetables but they found margarine contains higher amounts of vitamin K than other dairy products. They believe that the reason for the higher level of vitamin K is because margarine is made from vegetable oil.
             Until recently, vitamin K has been most well known as a fat soluble vitamin that plays an important role in blood clotting, said H. J. Forrester. Now researchers have found out that it also helps with bone formation. They have found that people with osteoporosis or osteoporosis factures have very low levels of vitamin K in the blood stream. This could be a key help in fighting osteoporosis. They founding out that older people are getting more vitamin K than younger people. Researchers think younger people that are growing at a fast rate need this vitamin just as much as older people. From my experience working at an animal hospital, I know that Vitamin K also plays an important role in helping animals. When animals eat a poison that is used to exterminate rodents, the animals are given vitamin K to keep them from bleeding internally, reversing the effects of the poison.