Summary
Vitamins are substances that your body needs to grow and develop normally. Vitamin K helps your body by making proteins for healthy bones and tissues. It also makes proteins for blood clotting. If you don't have enough vitamin K, you may bleed too much.
Newborns have very little vitamin K. They usually get a shot of vitamin K soon after they are born.
If you take blood thinners, you need to be careful about how much vitamin K you get. You also need to be careful about taking vitamin E supplements. Vitamin E can interfere with how vitamin K works in your body. Ask your health care provider for recommendations about these vitamins.
There are different types of vitamin K. Most people get vitamin K from plants such as green vegetables, and dark berries. Bacteria in your intestines also produce small amounts of another type of vitamin K.
Learn More
- Find a Nutrition Expert (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics)
- Protect Your Baby from Bleeds: Talk to Your Healthcare Provider about Vitamin K (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Also in Spanish
- Rare Clotting Factor Deficiencies (World Federation of Hemophilia)
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Vitamin K
(National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements)
- Vitamin K (Harvard School of Public Health)
- Vitamin K deficiency bleeding of the newborn (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
Clinical Trials
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ClinicalTrials.gov: Vitamin K
(National Institutes of Health)
Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)
- Article: Belgian Consensus Recommendations to Prevent Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding in the...
- Article: The Vessels-Bone Axis: Iliac Artery Calcifications, Vertebral Fractures and Vitamin K...
- Article: Hepatic and Vascular Vitamin K Status in Patients with High Cardiovascular...
- Vitamin K -- see more articles