Forms of Vitamin K

Vitamin K actually comes in three different forms:
First, there’s vitamin K1, or phylloquinone. Phylloquinone is ubiquitously distributed in plants, green leafy, vegetables oils, and algae and is the main source of vitamin K in the human body. This group of lipophilic vitamins, mostly required for blood coagulation, also plays important roles in bone metabolism, calcification and vascular health.

Next, there’s Vitamin K2, also called menaquinone. This the form friendly bacteria in the intestines make. Vitamin K2 helps the body turn on biological switches that activate three critical preteens: osteocalcin, calcitonin, and matrix G1a. Osteocalcin, calcitonin, and matrix G1a are calcium-binding proteins that are essential in guiding into the bone.

The September 2003 International Journal of Oncology revealed that treating lung cancer patients with vitamin K2 slowed the growth of cancer cells. Among food sources of vitamin K2 are green vegetables, parsley, cilantro, watercress, culinary herbs and green drinks”.

The last form would be called vitamin K3. This is the artificial form, also called menadione. All vitamin K ends up in liver, where it’s used to make some of the substance that make blood clot.
Forms of Vitamin K

Phylloquinone

The major dietary source of vitamin K, the form found in green plants, is generally called vitamin K1 but it is preferably called phylloquinone. It was discovered in higher plants nearly 75 years ago by Henrik Dam but was recognized only a little over a decade ago as an electron carrier between the primary acceptor and inter-polypeptide iron-sulfur center FeS-X in photosystem.

Green leafy vegetables especially spinach (380 ug/100 g), cabbage (145 ug/100 g), broccoli (180 ug/100 g) and Brussels sprouts (177 ug/100 g) supply substantial amounts of phylloquinone.

Certain vegetables oils (soybean, cotton seed, canola and olive) also are good sources. The phylloquinone content of oils varies considerably, with soybean oil (190 ug/100 g) and canola oil (130 ug/100 g) quite high and corn oil (3 ug/100 g) a very poor source.

Exposure to light degrades vitamin K, so the phylloquinone content of oils varies not only with brand and batch but also with storage time if the oil are bottled in transparent container. Therefore, vegetable oils may not be a reliable source of vitamin K.

Phylloquinone was reported in green, brown and read algae and also in the blue-green alga Nostoc. In the brown, red and blue-green algae there was more phylloquinone present compared with plastoquinone than there was in the higher plants. In fruit and in petals phylloquinone was present in detectable quantities.
Phylloquinone