Vitamin Supplements

Who is at the Risk of Vitamin K deficiency?

If you answer yes to any of the following questions, you (or your baby) have an above-average risk of developing a vitamin K deficiency.

• Do you have a chronic illness (particularly a liver disease) or a disorder that interferes with the absorption of fats (such as ulcerative colitis, sprue, or Crohn’s disease)? These diseases can impair the body’s ability to absorb and store vitamin K.

• Are you a chronic user of mineral oil, anticholesterol drugs, or antibiotics? The nonabsorbable fats of mineral oil attach to vitamin K and carry it out of the body. Some anticholesterol drugs (cholestyramine and colestipol) inhibit absorption of vitamin K. Certain antibiotics, including tetracycline, neomycin, and cephalosporins, suppress bacterial production of vitamin K. Read the rest of this entry »

Before you decide that you need to take vitamin supplements or change the way you eat, you should know where you stand and how much improvement you really need. In fact, most people get all of the vitamin K they need through diet alone.

To help you analyze your current diet, we’ve developed a system you can use to calculate your approximate vitamin K intake. Following is a list of vitamin K food sources, arranged according to the percentage of our Optimal Daily Allowance of vitamin K contained in them. Since 1 cup of raw carrots contains 17.81 mcg of vitamin K and the ODA for vitamin K is 80 mcg, we’ve listed carrots in the 20 Percent category. (We have erred on the conservative side when rounding off percentages.) Read the rest of this entry »