Nutrients & Vital substances Overview of micronutrients K – L

Vitamin K (phylloquinone)

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that has long been known to be essential for blood clotting and wound healing.
The natural form (K1) can also be produced by the body’s own intestinal bacteria; it is also found in abundance in many vegetables, especially kale, spinach, but also in milk and yoghurt, which normally meets the body’s own needs.

Thanks to refined analytical methods, the effect of this vitamin can now be observed more precisely than in the past. This has led to the discovery of previously unknown health-promoting properties of vitamin K, e.g. its important role in the metabolism of bones, connective tissue and kidney function.

Without sufficient vitamin K we cannot form osteocalcin. This is the supporting structure within our bones around which calcium crystallizes. If osteocalcin is missing, calcium is excreted instead and the risk of bone fractures increases accordingly (it has been found that women suffering from osteoporosis only have 25% of the vitamin of their healthy sisters).

When vitamin K is added, osteocalcin production starts again; less calcium is excreted and bone formation is renewed.

Modern canned or ready-to-eat foods are harmful to the vitamin K supply, as are numerous drugs, e.g. painkillers and sleeping pills, but also antibiotics.

Signs of a deficiency can be:

• intestinal disorders,
• only slowly healing wounds,
• frequent nosebleeds,
• states of exhaustion,
• painful menstrual cramps.

People who need to take blood-thinning medication should only take vitamin K after consulting their doctor. 100 mcg is generally sufficient for the supply, except for persons with intestinal diseases such as chronic diarrhoea, Crohn’s disease or colitis, which limits the body’s own synthesis of the vitamin in the intestine.

Carotenoids

If carotenoids are considered the „stars“ among antioxidants today, it is also because their specific mode of action has been better and better understood. There are about 600 different carotenoids, but we usually only know one: beta-carotene.

Its protective effects in cancer prevention have been known and proven for years. They were questioned by two extensive studies in 1994 and 1996 – which have since become famous – which seemed to prove, among other things, the accumulation of lung cancer in (long-term) smokers after taking beta-carotene.

These results were in striking contrast to many studies that were made before – and after. When possible causes were investigated, it was discovered – apart from shortcomings in the conduct of the study – that isolated, synthetically produced beta-carotene had been used, a substance that does not occur naturally.

The typical thing about nature is that carotenoids do not occur in isolation but together.

According to this experience, nutrient scientists recommend using beta-carotene as a complex from natural sources, because this always ensures that other carotenoids are also absorbed. This favours the absorption and effectiveness of beta-carotene, just as we know it from the vitamins of the B family, which best develop their synergistic effect in the organism when taken together.

The specific effects of individual carotenoids such as lutein and lycopene have been better and better researched since then, but many of the 600 species are still in a kind of „Sleeping Beauty sleep“, waiting to be included in the ranks of the „stars“ of antioxidants.

Astaxanthin

The microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis has a very complex life cycle. At a certain stage of cell development the cells produce a large amount of the natural colour pigment astaxanthin.

This microalgae is considered the most important source of this pigment in nature. and is responsible for the colourfulness of many organisms. For higher organisms such as fish, astaxanthin is essential, i.e. they cannot synthesize it themselves, but have to take it in with their food.

As the astaxanthin molecule is fat-soluble, it accumulates in the organisms in the course of the food chain and is thus passed on to higher organisms from the microalgae in the food web. This is particularly impressive in the case of salmon, whose flesh gets its distinct reddish colour from astaxanthin.

Astaxanthin is related to beta carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin, but its antioxidant effect is much higher. Above all, it protects our skin cells from light damage caused by UV radiation.

It has the potential to keep us looking young for longer. „Astaxanthin is one of the most amazing antioxidants we have ever discovered,“ says American microbiologist Todd Lorenz.

Studies have shown that astaxanthin is four times more effective as an antioxidant than beta carotene and even binds free radicals a hundred times more effectively than vitamin E.

Astaxanthin is also one of the few antioxidants that crosses the blood-brain barrier and thus protects the eyes and the central nervous system from disease.