Oral vitamin K - just doesn't make sense - Page 3

[MsBlack]

A butter birth is easy...smooth, perfectly normal, not one thing that worries anyone at all. Wholistic mw was referring to the kind of butter birth that is very short--but not all of them are short--they're just all smooth as silk and satisfying as butter!

[tanyalynn]

I completely agree that we are in general, deficient in the fat-soluble vitamins....well, in most nutrients, in this fast-food (take out), convenience-food (microwaveable) era. But perhaps especially deficient in the fat soluble vitamins (D, E, A, K--did I miss any?). HOwever, I would definitely NOT say that the average american has any deficiency at all of animal fats! If you read Michel Odent and others on this issue, you can see that while there is agreement at base, on the general deficiency of fat-soluble vitamins (esp. w/respect to pregnancy/babies), then solution given is somewhat different: mainly, the emphasis is on the NON-saturated fats (omega 3s in particular) that are obtained from fish, yes, but also from fruits/seeds--and definitely do NOT come from any other animal fats.

Maybe I should start another thread because this has been tickling at the back of my mind for a long time. You may really enjoy reading Price's book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. The WAP Foundation emphasizes some parts of Price's work more than others, but his book is just fascinating. The "X Factor" that he describes in his book is vitamin K2, it just took a few decades after his death to match the compound he was measuring with the vitamin that was already known.

And more of a digression, but the interesting thing about omega-3's is that they are a whole lot higher in animals that are fed what they are supposed to eat (evolutionarily, I mean). Grocery store eggs have something along the lines of 16x as much omega-6 as omega-3, but eggs from chickens foraging for plants and insects and whatnot have pretty much a 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3. Grassfed beef shows the same trend. That's why they emphasize high-quality animal sources as much as they do.

[mwherbs]

as for vitamin K- right now the average woman of childbearing age in America does not even get the current recommended amount of vitamin K thru diet- so an aspect of these issues has to do with moms not eating enough- so it isn't there to pass along via breast milk. another thing is that vitamin K recommended amounts are going to change and the amount is much higher - it is one of thethings that help prevent osteoperosis- and also helps to keep arteries from hardening(tells calcium to settle in bones not soft tissues) in any case MsBlack quoted an often quoted stat on numbers of infants who will get HDN- but that is not the number across the board- in New York state when they did their retrospective studies they found the incidence of HDN/LHDN to be much higher closer to 1-2/2000 and there are other places that have found similar incidence of infants who are breastfed who do not get supplemental vitamin K to have HDN/LHDN Bejing China being one of those places(in researching this it seems that they have a very "westernized diet there) in any case if you are not eating sufficient vitamin K to meet you own needs then where is it going to come from to meet your child's needs---
with the baby boomer women aging we see how severe osteoperosis is and that what we have been doing so far is not protecting women, it is a life long problem, not to mention CAD - the foods we need we just aren't eating -- SEVERAL servings of greens raw or cooked every day (and that would just be one aspect) there are other things like adequate vitamin D, exercise.... but this post is really about vitamin K and that while the baby and mother's body work to tightly regulate only small levels of vitamin K through to baby in pregnancy the opposite is true when breast feeding -the milk will supply increasing amounts- there are no studies that show us when that tops out- if you supplement a mom then the amount in her breast milk increases- so unlike water content that seems to stay fairly constant vitamin K is regulated more like essential fatty acids are- something that if mom eats it it will be supplied to baby but if she doesn't then the baby will not get enough---- so that is how a perfect system can be lacking-- and it also points to research that should be done-- just exactly how much vitamin K intake does mom have to have before breastmilk will not continue to pass it along--- that would be the mom/baby optimal level and would protect both mother and baby.
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I wanted to add that in the research on aging and vitamin K that su one study using supplemental doses of 1000 mcg/day- thought to represent 2000-5000 mcg dietary vitamin K - changed blood levels - a 10 fold increase in vitamin K (phylloquinone)blood levels all these people had within normal range for the PT and PIVKA-II levels to start with and when PT and PIVKA-II values were evaluated to determine the effect of phylloquinone on coagulation parameters, no change was observed . So increasing vitamin K did not change the clotting status much of people who were already in normal"healthy range" but what it did do was significantly decreased total osteocalcin {approx}9% (from 25.0 ± 1.1 µg/L at baseline to 22.8 ±1.0 µg/L at 1 wk; P < 0.005). No change was observed in the control group. ± SEM. *Significantly different from respective control, P < 0.005.
the thing is that babies do have markers for even clotting factor deficency and if breastmilk will readily supply increasing amounts of vitamin k to baby if it is in mom's blood and those markers decrease then babies are not only missing out on clotting factors but the other things that vitamin K would provide if there was enough of it to meet the clotting factor needs.

[MsBlack]

mwherbs--

thanks for this info. I find it very interesting that there is such a huge disparity in the numbers/stats on HDN occurrence. It's actually pretty hard to believe that it could be as high as '1-2 in 2000' since I've never seen HDN and don't know any mws who have--not that I doubt you/your sources, mind you. Makes me wonder about the populations studied--nutritionaly speaking what % of study group might have been generally undernourished, such as in regions where poverty rates are higher. also makes me think about farming, and depletion of soil nutrients--possibly something that varies quite a bit regionally. Also related to farming, the note Tanya made on livestock feeding practice and how modern practices differ so greatly from 'wild food' and the impact on nutritional content of meat/eggs.

In any event, it's good to know--and makes some sense--that HDN does vary by region, this is important information to share.

[mbravebird]

Tanya, I think part of what you'e pointing out is that almost all dietary sources of K are sources of K1.

K2 is what's produced in the gut by the bacteria, and most foods don't have it. The ones that do are, like you said, mostly animal fat sources. It's in some raw milk, it's in fermented cod liver oil, and it's in some other fermented foods. Otherwise, you have to rely on the gut to make it.

Raw grassfed milk, fermented cod liver oil, and truly fermented foods are hard to come by in this day and age, whereas they didn't used to be at all. So it makes sense that breastmilk is lower in K2 than it used to be.

Also, the body can store vitamin K for about a month, so in pregnancy it would seem that last month is the most important for extra supplementation in order to have high birth levels.

[mwherbs]

so the New York studies actually report even higher numbers--this is how they ended up with manditory administration -- it is not the life long answer to a problem it is a stop-gap measure--
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1695173

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the Chinese study are going to be a tricker I'll get the citation - well and wrong on this one as well it is more like almost 3/1000-- but coupled with the NY findings they are of a piece--

Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2002 Sep;36(5):305-7.

[An epidemiological study on vitamin K deficiency bleeding in infants under six months]

Zhou F, He S, Wang X.

Department of Child Health, Shandong Provincial Maternal and Child Health Institute, Jinan 250014, China.

OBJECTIVE: To understand the incidence and relevant affecting factors of infant vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB) in Shandong Province. METHODS: With stratified cluster sampling, 28 156 live newborns from five districts and six counties were surveyed for the condition of bleeding from their birth to 6 months based on standard diagnostic criteria. A 1:2 matched case-control study of VKDB was performed. RESULTS: An overall incidence of VKDB was 3.27 per thousand in Shandong;higher in the rural areas (4.96 per thousand ) than in the urban areas (1.19 per thousand ). Most of the bleeding cases were breast-fed babies (about 95.57%) and incidence of VKDB in pre-term babies (22.52 per thousand ) was higher than that in term ones (2.96 per thousand ). Mothers' drug taking during pregnancy, asphyxia at birth, breast-feeding and illness within two weeks after birth were risk factors for it. Use of vitamin K after birth and bottle-feeding were protective factors for it. CONCLUSIONS: Incidence of VKDB is higher in
Shandong Province, as compared to other areas all over the country at the same time period. It is very important to prevent VKDB, focusing on high-risk babies in the rural areas, including those of preterm, breast-fed and suffering illness after birth.

PMID: 12411188 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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when I started researching vitamin K several years ago (mind you my own home born kids did not get it) there were 2000 articles listed on pub med now there are over 11,000 articles - most of the studies have to do with vitamin K and aging. Tufts university does quite a bit of the US research- they re-determined vitamin K levels in foods and looked at stuff like Dihydro-K1 that is the form of vitamin K made when oil is hydrogenated- it has some of the clotting capabilities that K1 has but none of the bone sparing properties- vitamin K also has to do with insulin and seems to help with people who are insulin resistent-- so their studies show that the average American woman of childbearing age gets about half the rda- the people who get the most in their diet are old women- in any case after the vitamin K tables were revised Greer(the ped in the US who has done the breastmilk/vitamin K studies) revised his earlier findings and did some further testing by supplementing moms-- unfortunately he didn't look for how much vitamin K it would take for mom to supply adequate vitamin K to baby- I think that the amount that tops out breast milk will be the amount that is optimal for moms to be getting in their own diets for their health as well-- yes fermented foods and vitamin K 2 are important but we do get some of that from our own flora and if you have soy sauce or temph, butter, cream but I am also saying that K1 is a rare thing in todays diet and far more lacking other than that weird hydrogenated stuff-- I have moms thinking that they are eating lots of vitamin K foods when they have 3 salads a week!!!!
my grandmothers both had several servings a day of green veggies- wild and gardened and my grandma always said that it would help your bones, then everyone said no the calcium has oxilates and is bound well turns out she was right in the long run- it was the vitamin K not the minerals in the greens--
so there are places that even though they don't have a lot of food they still get greens- like India -- now they do eat fermented sources of vitamin K and butter and they get a bit of greens several times a day-- they still have incidence of HDN/LHDN but it is not as high as other places where people don't eat greens or fermented foods

[xbabymamax]

you can try to boost the level of vit k in your milk by supplementing and taking alfalfa the last month of pregnancy.

[mwherbs]

I wanted to add that I know of a few babies who have died of HDN/LHDN and when talking with other midwives several have treated symptoms-- babies who have started showing bruising or had some blood in stool they have given vitamin K after---

[Moonchild77]

Here in Holland, they give the baby an oral dose at birth and then for up to 3/4 months every day a tablespoon, the breastfed babies that is.

I stopped the tablespoons after a fewe weeks, forgot them...


I was wondering, doesn;t the oral solution "ruin" the gut flora, like any other substance will (cowsmilk, etc) and make the gut/baby more likely to get sick/etc, while breastmilk is the only thing that is good for the gut of the baby??

[Moonchild77]

1 mg i.m. of 2 mg per os c (voor per os te herhalen in geval van braken/to repeat in case of throwing up)



Gezonde baby die voor meer dan 50% van de behoeften borstvoeding krijgt
Indien orale toediening bij de geboorte: 1 à 2 mg per os eenmaal per week, ofwel 25μg per os eenmaal per dag
Healthy baby that gets more than 50 % breastfed: if oral solution: then 25 micrograms orally per day for 3 months.

[DisplacedYooper]

Originally Posted by MsBlack

you quoted the article incorrectly--it is not 25mg daily dose (milligrams), I believe it is 25mcg (micrograms). They did write 'mg' for the initial 1mg dose; but then they used a symbol like a 'u', or a backwards 'y' with the 25--which I believe means micrograms. Can anyone clarify that--?

Yep, that symbol is the Greek letter mu, and it means 10^-6 in scientific notation (whereas milli means 10^-3) so a microgram is 1000 times smaller than is milligram.