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Originally Posted by Undertoad
When you eat vitamin K, it helps build the proteins in your blood that are needed for coagulation. That doesn't happen when you put it up your nose, so why does it work well?
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My understanding is that Vitamin K is used in about 7 different ways at different parts of the coagulation cycle, and that most of these processes happen (or are available to happen) rather instantaneously within all cells, not at a central organ or over a long period of time.
Wiki goes over my head, but seems to be saying this:
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The function of vitamin K in the cell is to convert glutamate in proteins to gamma-carboxyglutamate (Gla).
Within the cell, vitamin K undergoes electron reduction to a reduced form called vitamin K hydroquinone by the enzyme vitamin K epoxide reductase (VKOR).[70] Another enzyme then oxidizes vitamin K hydroquinone to allow carboxylation of Glu to Gla; this enzyme is called the gamma-glutamyl carboxylase[71][72] or the vitamin K-dependent carboxylase. The carboxylation reaction will proceed only if the carboxylase enzyme is able to oxidize vitamin K hydroquinone to vitamin K epoxide at the same time; the carboxylation and epoxidation reactions are said to be coupled. Vitamin K epoxide is then reconverted to vitamin K by VKOR. The reduction and subsequent reoxidation of vitamin K coupled with carboxylation of Glu is called the vitamin K cycle.[73] Humans are rarely deficient in vitamin K1 because, in part, vitamin K 1 is continuously recycled in cells.[74] Avotresante (talk) 22:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC) Warfarin and other coumarin drugs block the action of the VKOR.[75] This results in decreased concentrations of vitamin K and vitamin K hydroquinone in the tissues, such that the carboxylation reaction catalyzed by the glutamyl carboxylase is inefficient. This results in the production of clotting factors with inadequate Gla. Without Gla on the amino termini of these factors, they no longer bind stably to the blood vessel endothelium and cannot activate clotting to allow formation of a clot during tissue injury.
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By putting it on my opened/bleeding vessels, I have put it in my bloodstream, faster than I would have if I'd eaten it. The only question is, how fast can the cycle from glutamate to Gla operate? I will say that I have to leave the nose plug in for about 5-7 minutes for the bleeding to stop, but it only takes the one--without the vitamin K in there, it just soaks the noseplug in about 30 seconds and keeps right on going. I've had gushing nosebleeds that last 45 minutes, no matter how much pressure I put on them.