Everyone’s heard of other vitamins that are essential for human health. Everyone’s heard of vitamin B for energy or vitamin D for the bones, but not many people have heard of vitamin K. Fortunately, as more and more people find out about vitamin K, the more word will get out about its benefits. Structurally, vitamin K is very similar to vitamin E as far as fat-soluble vitamins are concerned. Vitamin k doesn’t work alone. While it may not be the most popular vitamin, it works in synergy with other vitamins to improve your overall health. Let’s look at some benefits of vitamin K and which food sources you can find it.
Vitamin K For Strong Bones
Vitamin K works alongside calcium to help keep your bones strong. Those who get a healthy amount of vitamin K a day can maintain bone density. The stronger your bones and joints are, the lower your risk of developing osteoporosis. Your bones will also be resilient against any fracturing.
Vitamin K For Better Brain Health
Your brain can also benefit from the fat-soluble vitamin that is vitamin K because it helps prevent artery hardening, affecting blood flow to the brain. While mostly known for bones, calcium can also work together with vitamin K to help prevent cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Vitamin k also plays a supporting role in the nervous system.
Vitamin K For Heart Health
Vitamin K truly shines as an essential vitamin when it comes to your cardiovascular health. When you’re not getting enough vitamin K in your body, you’re putting your arteries at risk of collecting calcium deposits. More vitamin K means your arteries are healthy (and flexible enough) to reduce the risk of calcium deposits. Calcification of the blood vessels could lead to a stroke or other cardiovascular events.
While vitamin K has plenty of benefits for the body, it’s not in a lot of multivitamins. For some reason, many multivitamins contain the other essential vitamins needed for a healthy life, but they completely forget about vitamin K. Many supplements that do have vitamin K only have it in small amounts. Fortunately, you don’t have to look towards multivitamins if you want to get a healthy amount of vitamin K, you can find the recommended amount of vitamin k through easily accessible food sources.
Vitamin K Food Sources
Eggs are an easy source of vitamin K. The vitamin K content in eggs isn’t very high, but no one only eats one egg anyway. People also don’t eat eggs alone. You can eat eggs alongside other foods high in vitamin K such as liver, fish, and other meats.
However, if you’re vegan or plant-based and choose not to consume animal products, you can find vitamin K through greens such as cabbage, Brussel sprouts, spinach, and turnip greens.
Kale alone has more than the recommended daily value of vitamin K, so it’s important to talk to your doctor if you’re already taking medication for blood clotting. However, vitamin K toxicity is extremely rare only because it’s difficult to get in the first place. If you’re not really in the mood for cruciferous vegetables or they cause gastrointestinal distress, then you can still find vitamin K through other vegetable sources such as green cabbage or scallions.
What if you’re someone who doesn’t like to each their vegetables? Well, try to get as much as you can stomach in a day, but if you insist on avoiding vegetables (which you really shouldn’t if you care about your long-term health), you can find small amounts of vitamin K in fruits such as apples, blueberries, grapes, or prunes.
Vitamin K might not be the most popular essential vitamin, but it does have a role in your body.