Tuesday July 13, 2010

Q: Why Vitamin K is called Vitamin "K"?


Answer:

Its called Vitamin K from its german origin"Koagulations-Vitamin".

Story of Vitamin K: In 1929, Danish scientist Henrik Dam investigated the role of cholesterol by feeding chickens a cholesterol-depleted diet. After several weeks, the animals developed hemorrhages and started bleeding. These defects could not be restored by adding purified cholesterol to the diet. It appeared that—together with the cholesterol—a second compound had been extracted from the food, and this compound was called the coagulation vitamin. The new vitamin received the letter K because the initial discoveries were reported in a German journal, in which it was designated as Koagulationsvitamin.