Understanding Vitamin K Deficiency: Risks, Symptoms, and Prevention

Vitamin K deficiency poses a significant health risk due to its critical role in blood clotting. Both humans and animals rely on this essential nutrient to prevent excessive bleeding, which can lead to severe complications or even death from minor cuts or injuries. While the general population typically receives adequate vitamin K from dietary sources and gut bacteria, certain groups are more susceptible to deficiency.

In humans, vitamin K is ordinarily obtained through a balanced diet that includes green leafy vegetables, such as spinach and kale, and fermented foods. The human body also synthesizes vitamin K via gut bacteria, providing an additional source of this vital nutrient. As a result, vitamin K deficiency is relatively rare.

However, newborns present a unique case. Since they lack the gut bacteria necessary to produce vitamin K, they are at a higher risk of deficiency. To counteract this, most newborns receive an injection of vitamin K shortly after birth. This preventative measure significantly reduces the risk of bleeding disorders in infants.

In adults, vitamin K deficiency is usually linked to dietary habits or prolonged use of oral antibiotics. Antibiotics can disrupt the gut microbiome, killing the beneficial bacteria that produce vitamin K. Additionally, individuals with liver disease or fat malabsorption issues may also experience vitamin K deficiency. This is because vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning it requires dietary fats for proper absorption.

The primary symptom of vitamin K deficiency is a slow blood clotting process, which can lead to prolonged bleeding even from minor injuries. Other symptoms include large, dark bruises from slight bumps, frequent nosebleeds, blood in urine, and gastrointestinal bleeding. These symptoms underscore the importance of maintaining adequate vitamin K levels for overall health.

In summary, while vitamin K deficiency is uncommon due to the nutrient's availability in foods and endogenous production by gut bacteria, certain populations, such as newborns and individuals on long-term antibiotics, are at higher risk. Preventative measures, including dietary management and supplementation when necessary, are crucial to mitigate the risks associated with this deficiency.
Understanding Vitamin K Deficiency: Risks, Symptoms, and Prevention

Read more...

What are the symptoms of vitamin A deficiency?

Although dietary deficiency of vitamin A is rare in North America and Western Europe, it is the leading cause of childhood blindness worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia, parts of Africa and Central and South America.

In a well nourished person, vitamin A stores are generally sufficient to last many months on a vitamins A-deficient diet before signs of deficiency appear.

Carrots are rich in beta-carotene

Protein deficiency reduces levels of retinal-binding protein, the blood carrier protein that transport vitamin A in the blood.

The initial symptoms of vitamin A deficiency are night blindness and keratinization of hair follicles. Night blindness usually becomes apparent when the patient enters a dark place or is caught in the glare of oncoming headlights while driving at night.

Continued deficiency leads to damage to eye tissue and irreversible blindness. Vitamin A deficiency interacts with other nutrients deficiencies and with infection, worsening respiratory infections or diarrhea and causing countless deaths.
What are the symptoms of vitamin A deficiency?

Read more...

Dietary deficiency of sodium in human body

A dietary deficiency of sodium is virtually unheard of in healthy adults. The element is widely distributed in food stuffs. Plant source contain less than animal products and are therefore prominent on low sodium diets.

Processed food of all kinds tend to have a high sodium content since many sodium compounds are used in preserving, tenderizing and flavoring.

Therefore, human diet generally contains more sodium than necessary. Sodium is readily absorbed and it circulates though the entire body. It is excreted through the kidney as chlorides and phosphates.

Excessive loss of sodium may result from vomiting, diarrhea, or profuse sweating. Depletion is usually, although not always, associated with concurrent later loss and it is the balance of sodium and water losses that will determine whether serum sodium is increased, decreased or remain normal.

The excessive loss can lead to a shocklike syndrome as blood volume falls, perfusion of tissue becomes insufficient, and veins collages.

There was a research that men deprived of food in an arctic environment lose large amount of sodium during the first days of starvation, but because this loss is accompanied by diureses, serum sodium levels remain unchanged.
Dietary deficiency of sodium in human body

Read more...

Deficiency of pantothenic acid

Pantothenic acid is a component of CoA, an essential coenzyme in a variety of reactions that sustain life. 

Deficiency of pantothenic acid is rare and takes several weeks to develop. It has been observed only in cases of severe malnutrition.

World War II prisoners in the Philippines, Burma, and Japan experienced numbness and painful burning and tingling in their feet; these symptoms were relived specially by pantothenic acid.

Deficiencies of this vitamin cause degeneration of nerve tissues with resulting muscular weakness, numbness and malaise.

Symptoms of pantothenic deficiency include burning feet syndrome, which is feeling of tingling and tenderness in the feet; headache; fatigue; impaired motor function; muscle cramps; disturbances of the digestive tract; and vomiting.
Deficiency of pantothenic acid

Read more...

Deficiency of vitamin A in children

Vitamin A deficiency causes visual impairment in many parts of the developing world and is the leading cause of acquired blindness in children.

Mild degree of vitamin A deficiency may increase children's risk of developing respiratory and diarrheal infections, decrease their growth rate, slow bone development, and decrease their likelihood of survival from serious illness.

Several reports suggest that all else being equal, xerophthalmia can increase the risk of mortality among malnourished, hospitalized children.

Severe vitamin A deficiency is the major cause of childhood blindness in the world, causing more than half of a million preschool children to lose their sight each year.

Children living in the United States who are considered to be at increased risk for subclinical vitamin A deficiency include:
*toddlers and preschool age children
*children living at or below the poverty level
*children with inadequate health care or immunizations
*children living in areas with known nutritional deficiencies
*recent immigrants or refugees from developing countries with high incidence of vitamin A deficiency or measles, and
*children with diseases of the pancreas, liver, intestines, or with inadequate fat digestion/absorption.

To solve the root cause of vitamin A deficiency, more vitamin A must be present in the diets of vulnerable people.

The basis for lifelong health begins in childhood. Vitamin A is a crucial component. Since breast milk is a natural source of vitamin A, prompting breastfeeding is the best way to protect babies from vitamin A deficiency.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends vitamins A supplementation for certain of measles infected infants and children.

Program planners and development leaders in health, agriculture, education and other sectors must understand the culture and ecology of food availability and consumption at the local level.
Deficiency of vitamin A in children

Read more...

What is Kwashiorkor?

Kwashiorkor is the condition that occurs mainly due to protein deficiency. Kwashiorkor is a Ghanaian word that refers to the birth position of a child and is used to describe the illness a child develops when the next child is born. Typically it appears in small children after nursing is stopped, as they receive insufficient proteins and too much of their caloric intake.

Kwashiorkor usually develops rapidly as a result of protein deficiency or more commonly is precipitate by an illness such as a measles or other infection.

In kwashiorkor, the protein deficiency is more marked than the energy deficiency, leading to much reduced protein synthesis. One effect of this is that the liver cannot make enough blood plasma protein.

Without protein to maintain fluid balance and low serum albumin levels, the child’s limbs and abdomen become swollen with edema – a distinguishing feature of kwashiorkor.

Kwashiorkor usually develops in children older than 6 months, generally when they cease to nurse.

The symptoms of kwashiorkor include: low body weight, edema, moon-face. Swollen abdomen, dry and brittle hair, skin conditions and irritability.
What is Kwashiorkor?

Read more...

Calcium – function and deficiency

Physical Function 

Structural component of bones and teeth; role in intracellular and hormonal secretion regulation, muscle contraction, and activation of some enzyme systems.

Calcium is maintained relatively high concentration in the blood and extracellular fluids, where it is needed to facilitate such functions as blood coagulation and intercellular communications.

The calcium in bones serves as a reservoir for calcium that is needed throughout the body. Bones and teeth contain more than 99 percent of the body’s calcium.

Calcium also is the key factor in normal transmission of nerve impulses. The movement of calcium into nerve cells triggers the release of neurotransmitter at the junction between nerves.

Calcium is a key component of the cell membrane and controls cell permeability and electrical properties.

Deficiency symptoms 

A low calcium intake during the growing years limits the bones’ ability to reach their optimal mass and density.

The symptoms of calcium deficiency includes rickets, osteomalacia, osteoporosis, scurvy, tetany, parathyroid hyperplasia, stunted growth, laryngospasm.

Deficiency of calcium in young girls causes late puberty, irregular menstruation, excessive bleeding with crampy pain during this period, anemia and lowered state of body resistance against infection.

Food sources 

Food sources of calcium include milk, milk products, sardines, clams, oysters, turnip greens, broccoli, legumes and dried fruits.

Calcium is classically associated with dairy products: milk, yoghurt and cheeses are rich sources of calcium, providing the major share of calcium from foods in the general diet in the United States and Canada.

When substantial amounts of grains are consumed, for like breads or as maize, these can be important sources, although the calcium in cereals tends to be less bioavailable than that in dairy products.

Calcium – function and deficiency

Read more...

Deficiency of vitamin D

Vitamin D deficiency is the true epidemic of our times. It is perhaps more common than any other medical condition at the present time.

Deficiencies in vitamin D result in rickets (deformities of bone, such as bow legs and curvature of the spine) and teeth defects. It can cause osteomalacia in adults.

This due to deficient vitamin D levels resulting reduced calcium absorption, to only 10 to 15 percent of dietary calcium, and less than 50 percent absorption of dietary phosphorus. As a result, the protein scaffold made by osteoblasts can’t be mineralized.

There was a hypothesis that vitamin D deficiency may increase the risk of prostate cancer, based on the finding that mortality rates of this cancer in the United States were inversely proportional to ultraviolet radiation.

Scientist also are looking for ways vitamin D and its derivatives might treat other conditions of abnormal cell growth, such as psoriasis and cancers of the blood, lung and cervix.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to increased risk for cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes.

Symptoms that point to vitamin D deficiency are muscle spasms, bone pain and joint pain. Lesser degrees of deficiency may be characterized by loss of appetite, a burning sensation in the mouth and throat, diarrhea, insomnia, visual problems, and weight loss.

Deficiency of vitamin D

Read more...

Vitamin D and Rickets

In an infant or child this deficiency results in the disease called rickets, in which the rapidly growing bones grow soft and eventually bend under the weight of the body.

It’s a defect in the mineralization of bone matrix with increase bone mass.

Affected children lack the exposure to ultraviolet light necessary for the dermal synthesis of vitamin D and have a poor diet in vitamin D in which the component (high fiber and high cereal) probably contribute to the excessive breakdown of vitamin D.

In adults, the same disorder is called osteomalacia or adult rickets. It is to be distinguished from osteoporosis where bone mass is decreased from hypophosphatemic osteopeniaof premature infants, and from renal osteodystrophy.

The name rickets is from the Old English wrickken, to twist. The more technical medical term, rachitis, which comes from Greek, the spine , was suggested by Francis Glisson in 1650.

Vitamin D deficiency rickets occurs in underprivileged populations throughout the world, particular in the northern hemisphere.

Women in United States usually take multivitamins and eat vitamin D dairy foods so rickets and vitamin D deficiency is less a problem than in developing countries and northern Europe.
Vitamin D and Rickets

Read more...

Vitamin E Deficiency

Vitamin E was discovered in 1922, but not until 1983 that vitamin E was demonstrated to be dietary essential for human beings.

Vitamin E deficiency was first describe in children with fat malabsorption syndromes, principally abetalipoproteinemia, cystic fibrosis, and cholestatic liver disease.

They have been reports of vitamin E deficiency symptoms in person with protein calories malnutrition.

The frequency of human vitamin E deficiency is very rare, deficiency is usually associated with disease of fat malababsorption such as cystic fibrosis.

In individual at risk, it is clear that vitamin E supplements should be recommended to prevent deficiency symptoms.

Without vitamin E, the red blood cells break open and spill their contents, probably due to oxidation of the polyunsaturated fatty acids in their membranes.

The classic sign of vitamins E deficiency, known as erythrocyte hemolysis, is seen in premature infants, born before the transfer of vitamin E from the mother to the infant that takes place in the last week of pregnancy.

The primary human vitamin E deficiency symptoms is a peripheral neuropathy characterized by the degeneration of the large caliber axons in the sensory neurons.

Other vitamin E deficiency symptoms observed in humans include spinocerebellar ataxia, skeletal myopathy, and pigmented retinopathy.

Prolonged vitamin E deficiency also can causes neuromuscular dysfunction involving the spinal cord and retina of the eye.
Vitamin E Deficiency

Read more...

Protein Deficiency

Protein deficiency is common among agricultural African population, especially those whose diet consist mainly of vegetables that are poor in proteins.

Clinical symptoms of protein deficiency include irritability, edema, ascites, hypoproteinemia and hypoalbuminemia.

The first sign of protein deficiency is likely to be weak muscles – the body tissue most reliant on protein.

For example, children who also do not get enough protein have shrunken, weak muscles. Their cheeks may become round and more prominent. They may also have thin hair, their skin may be covered with sores.

A protein deficiency may also show up in your blood. Red blood cells live for only 12 days. Protein is needed to produce new ones.

In protein malnutrition every cell and every tissue is affected, However, they are not affected at the same time nor at the same rate.

There is a pattern of reaction of the body, in which organs with high protein and cell turnover are affected early followed later by these with low protein turnover.

People who do not get enough protein may become anemic, having fewer red blood cells than they needed.

Protein deficiency may also show up as fluid retention (big belly in a starving child) hair become thin and loss, and muscle wasting caused by the body’s attempt to protect itself by digesting the proteins in its own muscle tissue.

Skin changes such as hyperpigmentation, hyperkeratosis, desquamation and ulcers may occur. That’s why victim of starvation are literally, skin and bones.
Protein Deficiency

Read more...

Vitamin A Deficiency

Vitamin A deficiency is common among children. Night blindness and eye changes are often early sign.

This nutritional deficiency is widespread in developing countries, and the problem is exacerbated by a tendency by some to withhold vegetables from children for cultural or other reason.

Where it is the limiting nutrient, vitamin A deficiency causes anemia, growth retardation and xerophthalmia; increases the incidence and/or severity of infectious episodes.

Reduced survival is the most severe and potentially the most widespread consequence of vitamin A deficiency, and the one that has generated the most interest.

It is also common knowledge that an adequate levels of vitamin A is essential for animal vision and that prolonged low levels of vitamin A can lead to xerophthalmia and ultimately, blindness.

Vitamin A deficiency decreases resistance to infections and increases the severity, complications and risk of death from various diseases.

When vitamin A deficient, the epithelial cells of growth skin, oral cavities and respiratory, genitourinary and gastrointestinal tracts become dry and flat, hardening so that absorption of nutrients is reduced.

Moreover, vitamin A deficiency may increase the risk of bacteria colonization or delay recovery.

Vitamin A Deficiency

Read more...