Vitamin K -- A Do-It-All vitamin???

Vitamin K is historically known for the ability to keep the body’s blood clotting mechanisms at a prime functioning level. Vitamin K was named in the 1930’s when a Danish scientist discovered this miraculous vitamin’s vital role in the liver. Vitamin K provides nutrients to the liver which forms proteins that aid in blood clotting and preventing abnormal bleeding. The K actually stands for Koagulations – the Danish word for clotting. Over the last 90 years, vitamin K has kept flexing its unique power muscles and continuously demonstrate how fully awesome it is.

In addition to being the blood clot vitamin of the world, Vitamin K can (I will be discussing the ones with three stars):
• healthy blood and clotting
• to improve the skin value
• promotes healing of skin discolorations ***
• protects from hip fractures in postmenopausal women *Ladies - you may be young now…*
• vascular problems of the skin
• bone health
• to improve the healing and appearance of scars and skin imperfections ***
• to treat anticoagulant-induced prothrombin deficiency
• spider veins of the face spider veins of the face ***
• to protect against osteoporosis *Ladies! Ladies! Again, this is important when you hit menopause!*

When working on products for Marin Natural Beauty, I always make a point of thoroughly researching every oil, plant, butter, and/or antioxidant ingredient I consider using. Sometimes new ingredient ideas will come to me in a dream, sometimes they are the latest buzzword in the beauty industry and sometimes it is just the path I am on. Basically, vitamin K was all of the above. For the last decade, I have been noticing spider veins on my face (not pretty and definitely not an ego boost). Very concerned about this, I began opening my ears and eyes to a solution and vitamin K seemed to be the answer that kept coming back. Applied topically, vitamin K has been shown to help reduce facial bruising after surgeries (one girlfriend says it helped a lot after her laser treatment), reduce dark under-eye circles, and to treat skin irritations. Also, vitamin K is known to reduce redness in people affected by rosecea and broken blood vessels (ahem!).

I advocate that you find ways to get a good dose of V-K in your diet daily not only because vitamin K is so important to keep your bones strong and your body optimally functioning but because I am a true believer that what you eat is more important than what you put on your skin.

Where to find Vitamin K: Among other foods, vitamin K is found in most green, leafy vegetables green vegetables (kale, mustard greens, swiss chard, etc), dry soybeans, lentils, cabbage, and brussel sprouts. For a topical cream, in October Marin Natural Beauty will debut a vitamin K rich facial cream!

And the good news – cooking, freezing or storing your vitamin K rich foods does not seem to affect the vitamin K content. Don’t think you have to eat your kale raw in order to get the benefits. Go ahead, make that yummy stir-fry with mustard greens or have some delicious warm-your-belly lentil soup on a chilly, fall morning and reap the benefits of this perfect vitamin.

Healthy Dosage: Honestly, a good, balanced diet will provide you with the vitamin K you need but if you find yourself with lots of unexplained bloody noses, heavy menstrual bleeding, gum bleeding, bleeding within the digestive tract, nose bleeding, easy bruising, blood in the urine, prolonged clotting times, hemorrhaging, bone problems and anemia you may have a vitamin K deficiency. Like any health issue, always go see a doctor and don’t try to self-diagnose the problem.

Sources:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=112
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002407.htm
http://www.online-vitamins-guide.com/skin-vitamins/vitamin-k-for-skin.htm
http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/HerbsVitaminsandMinerals/vitamin-kVitamin K