Is Vitamin D Harmful Without Vitamin K?

Getting adequate amounts of vitamin D and vitamin K is essential for your health.

But some sources claim that supplementing with vitamin D is harmful if you are low in vitamin K.

So what’s the truth? This article looks into the science behind those claims.

What Are Vitamins D and K?

Vitamin D and vitamin K are essential, fat-soluble nutrients.

They are generally most abundant in high-fat foods, and their absorption into the bloodstream is enhanced when they are consumed with fat.

Often called the “sunshine vitamin,” vitamin D is abundant in fatty fish and fish oil, but it’s also produced by your skin when it’s exposed to sunlight.

One of Vitamin D’s primary functions is to promote calcium absorption and maintain adequate calcium levels in your blood. A vitamin D deficiency may cause bone loss.

Vitamin K is found in leafy greens, fermented legumes and vegetables, as well as in some fatty, animal-sourced foods, such as egg yolk, liver, and cheese.

It’s necessary for blood clotting and promotes the accumulation of calcium in your bones and teeth.

Summary: Vitamins D and K are fat-soluble nutrients that play an essential role in your body’s calcium metabolism.

Vitamins D and K Work as a Team

When it comes to calcium metabolism, vitamins D and K work together. Both play important roles.

The Role of Vitamin D

One of the primary functions of vitamin D is to maintain adequate calcium levels in the blood.

There are two ways in which vitamin D can achieve this:

·       Improving calcium absorption: Vitamin D enhances the absorption of calcium from the food you eat.

·       Taking calcium from bone: When you don’t consume enough calcium, vitamin D maintains its blood levels by drawing on the body’s main calcium supply — your bones.

Maintaining adequate blood levels of calcium is essential. While calcium is best known for its role in bone health, it has many other vital functions in the body.

During periods of insufficient calcium intake, your body has no other choice but to use the calcium reserves in your bones, even though that may cause bone loss and osteoporosis over time.

The Role of Vitamin K

As mentioned above, vitamin D ensures that your blood levels of calcium are high enough to meet your body’s demands.

However, vitamin D does not fully control where the calcium in your body ends up. That’s where vitamin K steps in.

Vitamin K regulates calcium in your body in at least two ways:

·       Promotes calcification of bone: Vitamin K activates osteocalcin, a protein that promotes the accumulation of calcium in your bones and teeth.

·       Reduces calcification of soft tissues: Vitamin K activates matrix GLA protein, which prevents calcium from accumulating in soft tissues, such as the kidneys and blood vessels.

At this point, few controlled human studies have investigated the effects of vitamin K supplements on blood vessel calcification, but more studies are under way.

Blood vessel calcification is implicated in the development of chronic diseases, such as heart and kidney disease.

Summary: One of vitamin D’s main functions is to ensure adequate levels of calcium in your blood. Vitamin K promotes calcium accumulation in your bones while reducing its accumulation in soft tissues such as blood vessels.

When it comes to calcium metabolism, vitamins D and K work together. Both play important roles.

The Role of Vitamin D

One of the main functions of vitamin D is to maintain adequate calcium levels in the blood.

There are two ways in which vitamin D can achieve this:

·       Improving calcium absorption: Vitamin D enhances the absorption of calcium from the food you eat.

·       Taking calcium from bone: When you don’t consume enough calcium, vitamin D maintains its blood levels by drawing on the body’s main calcium supply — your bones.

Maintaining adequate blood levels of calcium is essential. While calcium is best known for its role in bone health, it has many other vital functions in the body.

During periods of insufficient calcium intake, your body has no other choice but to use the calcium reserves in your bones, even though that may cause bone loss and osteoporosis over time.

The Role of Vitamin K

As mentioned above, vitamin D ensures that your blood levels of calcium are high enough to meet your body’s demands.

However, vitamin D does not fully control where the calcium in your body ends up. That’s where vitamin K steps in.

Vitamin K regulates calcium in your body in at least two ways:

·       Promotes calcification of bone: Vitamin K activates osteocalcin, a protein that encourages the accumulation of calcium in your bones and teeth.

·       Reduces calcification of soft tissues: Vitamin K activates matrix GLA protein, which prevents calcium from accumulating in soft tissues, such as the kidneys and blood vessels.

At this point, few controlled human studies have investigated the effects of vitamin K supplements on blood vessel calcification, but more studies are under way.

Blood vessel calcification is implicated in the development of chronic diseases, such as heart and kidney disease.

Summary: One of vitamin D’s main functions is to ensure adequate levels of calcium in your blood. Vitamin K promotes calcium accumulation in your bones while reducing its accumulation in soft tissues such as blood vessels.

How Do You Get Enough Vitamin K?

Vitamin K comes in many different forms, traditionally divided into two groups:

·       Vitamin K1 (phylloquinone): The most common form of vitamin K. It’s found in plants, notably leafy greens like kale and spinach.

·       Vitamin K2 (menaquinone): This form is much rarer in food and mainly found in animal-sourced food and fermented foods like natto.

·       Vitamin K2 is actually a large family of compounds, including menaquinone-4 (MK-4) and menaquinone-7 (MK-7).

·       MK-4: Found in animal-sourced foods like liver, fat, egg yolk and cheese.

·       MK-7: Formed by bacterial fermentation and found in fermented foods, such as natto, miso, and sauerkraut. It is also produced by your gut bacteria.

The current dietary recommendations do not distinguish between vitamin K1 and K2. For people aged 19 and older, the adequate intake is 90 mcg for women and 120 mcg for men.

The two charts below show the richest sources of vitamins K1 and K2, as well as the amounts these foods provide in a 100-gram serving.

Adding some of these foods to your daily diet would help you reach your requirements for vitamin K. Supplements are also widely available.

Since Vitamin K is fat-soluble, consuming it with fat can improve absorption.

For instance, you could add a little oil to your leafy greens or take your supplements with a meal that contains fat.

Fortunately, many foods rich in vitamin K2 are also rich in fat. These include cheese, egg yolks, and meat.

Do not take very high doses of vitamin K supplements before speaking with your doctor, as they may interact with certain medications.

Summary: Vitamin K1 is abundant in leafy, green vegetables, such as kale and spinach. Vitamin K2 is found in animal-sourced foods, such as liver, eggs and cheese, and fermented foods like natto.

The Bottom Line

Scientists are still investigating the functions of vitamins D and K.

They do not fully understand how they interact, but new pieces are gradually being added to the puzzle.

It’s clear that vitamin K benefits your heart and bones, but it’s unclear whether high-dose vitamin D supplements are harmful when you’re low in vitamin K.

Nevertheless, make sure to get adequate amounts of both vitamin D and K from your diet. Both of them are important.



source:Vitamin D and K

Best Time To Drink Milk: Morning Or Night

Milk drinking is a routine many of us get used to from childhood, and many carry well into adulthood. But have we been drinking milk all wrong? Milk may be better saved for an end of day drink to help you wind down and crank up the sleep-inducing serotonin and melatonin levels in your body.

Milk is a calcium-rich drink that’s loaded with nutrients like protein, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, Vitamin B2, and Vitamin B12, as well as Vitamin D if it is fortified milk.1 This makes it an excellent addition to your diet. But is there a good time or a bad time to drink milk? As it turns out, there may well be. Here’s how to make the most of that cup of milk by drinking to give your body what it needs when it needs it.

Is It the Best Way To Start Your Day?

Starting your day off with a bowl of cereal with milk poured over, or chugging down a milk based drink might seem like a quick and nutritious start to your day, but it can get a little dull if you’re not careful. Using whole fat milk can make the first meal of the day heavier than you want it to be. And it may not keep you as full as a breakfast that has a little more fiber in it (like oatmeal) to bulk it up or a richer protein source like eggs which keep you satiated longer.

In fact, Ayurveda suggests avoiding an overload of your digestive system in the morning. The body needs fuel that will help fire it up for the day. Heavy milk can bring on stomach aches or heartburn as well, due to the load on your digestive system. This is a time of day to have warm poached fruit or cooked vegetables. Also, incorporate a little milk into an oatmeal porridge (or have a nut milk instead!) to help ease your body into the day ahead and tank up on foods that release energy slowly (low glycemic foods like whole grains and fruit and vegetables can do this for you).

Why Nighttime Milk Drinking Is a Good Idea

Milk is the best drink at night when your body needs to wind down and switch from being active to calmer and more relaxed. Tryptophan is an amino acid that milk contains which helps improve the quality of sleep you get, as well as how long you sleep. It helps the body with creating serotonin and melatonin, two neurotransmitters that assist the body to manage its sleeping and waking cycle. You could have your cup of warm milk about half an hour before you turn in for the night.

The magnesium in milk is another reason to consider switching milk-drinking to the evening or night. Milk magnesium. The nutrient plays a key role in a whopping 300 biochemical reactions in the body6, including those that help you maintain healthy nerve and muscle function. And it’s these latter two that are critical in the context of sleep and nighttime rest. By keeping the body plied with this nutrient you might be able to stave off restless leg syndrome and muscular cramping caused by magnesium deficiency, to get a proper night’s rest.

The calcium in milk also helps boost serotonin levels in the body, while the melatonin helps fight off insomnia in those struggling with this sleep disorder due to stress or other reasons.

Make it part of your bedtime routine, and you’ll help your body create a nice turndown process every day. And such routine is perfect for your body to establish a good rhythm, and maintain a balance of energies central to Ayurvedic philosophy. With this balance of energies or doshas you should help overall health and vitality as well.

As the body rests at night, it also recovers and heals from the day’s wear and tear. If you mix some turmeric into your milk, you can amp up the power of the drink due to the anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and healing powers of the spice. So you’ll be able to go to sleep knowing the drink has helped ease inflammation, pain, and swelling, making it possible for someone with inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or chronic pain, to be able to relax a little and get some rest. Even if the shear stress and pressures of the day have taken their toll on your body leaving you with a searing headache, you could find a cup of warm turmeric milk soothes your body, reducing swelling and inflammation.

Or Not At All?

For some people, drinking milk is never a good idea, regardless of what time of day it is. Specifically, those with lactose intolerance or a dairy allergy. So how can you tell if you have these problems?

If you are lactose intolerant, you will notice digestive issues crop up soon after you have a cup of milk or any dairy product. Symptoms include gas or flatulence, diarrhea, and bloating. You may also experience abdominal pain and nausea. If that’s the case, you may need to look at alternative lactose-free milk options like nut milk or rice or soy milk to get your daily fix. For those with a dairy allergy that isn’t very severe, symptoms may include hives or a rash, stomach upset or vomiting after consumption. In some cases, bloody stools may also be present. The more severe form of this allergy, however, is hard to miss, and like other serious allergies can result in Anaphylaxis, where breathing is significantly impaired, and your body goes into a state of shock. 

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