Most of the time, the effects of vitamins and vitamin deficiencies spread over a period of time. If your body isn’t getting enough of a particular vitamin, it can take weeks, months, or even years of low levels before the effects are apparent. And when you start a vitamin regimen, it can take a significant period of time for your body to start exhibiting the effects of having sufficient levels.
Vitamin K, also known as potassium, is commonly associated with leg cramps. If a vitamin K deficiency is the cause of your leg cramps, adding the vitamin to your daily routine can likely relieve it in a relatively short period of time.
One of the most important (but least known) reasons for vitamin K in the human body has to do with blood clotting. This vitamin allows the blood to clot so that it forms clots naturally. This makes it important for anyone taking blood thinning medications to carefully monitor the amount of vitamin K they add to their body. If you’re taking a blood-thinning medication, talk to your doctor before adding any vitamins to your daily routine or changing your diet, especially if those changes involve vitamin K supplements or foods rich in vitamin K.
One of the biggest myths about vitamin K is that bananas are rich in vitamin K and can be used in place of vitamin K supplements. In fact, bananas are not a particularly good source of vitamin K. For example, half a cup of broccoli contains 200 times the amount of vitamin K in a banana. Green vegetables are among the highest in vitamin K content, with kale, turnip greens, broccoli, and spinach topping the list. Cabbage, green beans, and parsley are also included in the list of foods rich in vitamin K.
While green foods are a good source of vitamin K, they are not the only source. You will also find that strawberries are a moderately high source of vitamin K, as are pickles.
You don’t get all the vitamin K your body needs. In fact, this is one of the few vitamins that the body actually helps make. Babies don’t have a lot of vitamin K present in their bodies when they are first born, therefore a baby’s blood may not clot as it should. To combat that, many hospitals give babies an injection of vitamin K shortly after birth to start the body’s natural processing of this important vitamin.