Tag: Bleeding time

Contrary to some misconceptions, a severe deficiency of vitamin C, leading to scurvy, can cause spontaneous bleeding and poor wound healing. We explore the nuanced answer to the question: **Does vitamin C increase bleeding time?**

Despite causing widespread hemorrhages, easy bruising, and bleeding gums, a seminal study showed that the bleeding time test remains normal in scurvy. This seemingly paradoxical finding highlights that the bleeding stems from the structural fragility of blood vessels rather than a defect in the clotting mechanism typically measured by this test.

While severe vitamin K deficiency can cause life-threatening hemorrhages, it's a surprising fact that a routine bleeding time test will often come back normal. This seeming paradox is at the core of understanding why is bleeding time normal in vitamin K deficiency and requires a closer look at the complex process of blood clotting.

While severe vitamin C deficiency is known to cause bleeding gums and easy bruising, human studies have demonstrated that standard bleeding time tests do not show an increase in this condition. The bleeding is not due to a clotting defect but rather to compromised blood vessel integrity. This is a crucial distinction when considering the effects of a poor nutrition diet on your health.

While the main symptom of vitamin K deficiency is excessive bleeding, a key distinction exists between bleeding time and clotting tests. Clinically, **does vitamin K deficiency have increased bleeding time** is a nuanced question, as the deficiency primarily impacts coagulation (clotting) cascade factors, leading to a prolonged prothrombin time (PT) rather than an abnormal bleeding time.

Vitamin K deficiency, while uncommon in healthy adults, is the primary nutritional cause of increased bleeding time, as it is crucial for synthesizing the proteins that control blood clotting. In fact, all newborns are given a vitamin K injection at birth to prevent a life-threatening bleeding disorder known as Vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB).