Everything You Need To Know About Vitamin K2D3

Truly, the only way to know if you are getting enough vitamin D in your diet is to have this checked by your physician.

However, evidence shows that roughly 24-40% of the population is actually vitamin D deficient—meaning they have less than the recommended amount of vitamin D in their blood.

Fortunately, there are common risk factors that may be responsible for vitamin D deficiency, so getting to know these factors are a good way to educate yourself and understand if you may be susceptible to this condition.

These risk factors include:

• Having darker skin tone

• Older age groups (i.e., elderly)

• Obesity or being overweight

• A diet that is low in fish or dairy products

• Living in climates that experience less sunlight than those that are found along the equator

• Excessive use of sunscreen, which can block sunlight (more about this later)

• Spending an excessive amount of time indoors

In order for vitamin D to work properly, it has to be able to get inside the cell to cause changes at the level of the nucleus, which is a compartment within the cell that contains all of your DNA.

So, fat-soluble simply means that vitamin D is able to pass freely through this fatty layer and enter the cell to carry out its duties.

Now, where do you think vitamin D is produced?

The thyroid? The gut?

Nope, in fact, a significant amount of vitamin D production actually starts with your skin.

That’s right—the skin is an organ too!

To do this, your skin requires a good amount of a specific kind of light known as ultraviolet light (commonly referred to as UV). Importantly, the sun gives off a significant amount of natural UV light, which is why sunlight plays such a critical factor in avoiding vitamin D deficiency.

You see, although sunlight is important for the skin to be able to produce vitamin D, there are other compounds that are very important for the body to successfully produce this vitamin in its active form.

Specifically, I’m talking about vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Both of these compounds are produced by sunlight and are eventually transformed into vitamin D by the liver.

As it turns out, a significant number (up to 31%) of people are also deficient in vitamin K.

Importantly, it’s also been shown that vitamin K has immune boosting and antioxidant properties, while vitamin K deficiency has been linked to a number of health complications

Specifically, vitamin K1 and vitamin K2 are the most widely known compounds that are transformed into vitamin K in the body.

And, similar to vitamin D, there are studies showing that vitamin K2 is more effective and active than K1 when it comes to producing vitamin K

Now, we’ve talked about how vitamin D3 and K2 may just be the best precursor compounds to achieve normal levels of vitamin D and K in the blood, respectively.

The combination effects extend beyond their actions on bone health, however, as studies have also shown that vitamin D+K supplementation can also increase the health of heart and blood vessels.

Lastly, combining vitamin D and K was found to have positive effects on glucose metabolism and inflammation.

Specifically, supplementing with vitamin D+K for 8 weeks improved the activity of insulin, which is a molecule that signals cells in the body to absorb glucose, or sugar.