What is biotin?
When you think of health, the first couple things that come to mind are probably the following: how fat or thin you are, how much energy you have, and how athletic you can be. That’s pretty much all there is to do with health, right? Wrong. Health, and its close cousin, nutrition, have an effect on every little thing going on in your body right now, from the quality of your sleep to the life expectancy of your individual cells, from your vision and skin quality to the way you smell.
And there’s one particular part of our body that we don’t always realize is intertwined with our overall health: our hair. Hair health and growth come out of processes which our body is involved in all the time, and there are nutrients that our body needs to do things right.
One of these nutrients is biotin, a water-soluble B-vitamin that’s been in the news a lot recently. You’ll find plenty of blog articles, opinion pieces, and commercials from health experts making claims about it, but there are still plenty of questions that people ask about it. What exactly is biotin, what does it do, and does it really make your hair look better?
As we just mentioned, biotin is a B-vitamin, B7 to be exact. As is the case with all other B-vitamins, biotin forms a necessary part of many of the body’s underlying processes, especially metabolism. Its connection with hair health goes all the way back to the 1930s, when nutritional tests were being conducted on animals to test the effects of nutrition on the body. Subjects that were fed raw egg whites (without the yokes) suffered from skin problems and hair loss after a number of weeks on the diet. As raw egg whites contain a protein that can inhibit biotin’s usage in the body, the connection between biotin and hair loss was discovered. Since then, other tests have been conducted, including a study in which people with low biotin levels were given a biotin supplement. The subjects found their issues significantly improved.
The medical community has been trying to clarify the truth about biotin because some have claimed it’s a “miracle ingredient” that can instantly grow and improve your hair. The consensus doesn’t match that claim. Instead, the truth is that most people get enough biotin in their diets, and only those who have a medically-determined deficiency in it will see the biggest benefit from taking it as a supplement.
While it appears that biotin’s exact mechanisms of action aren’t fully understood, one line of thought in the world of dermatology is that biotin affects the way keratin is used – keratin being the main protein that makes up hair and nails. While some tests have been inconclusive, that hasn’t stopped doctors and dermatologists from commonly prescribing biotin supplements to their patients for skin, hair, and nail-related issues.
Where do you find biotin? Well, that’s the easy part. That’s because biotin is everywhere. You’ll find biotin supplements not only in once-a-day vitamins at your local grocery story, but also as standalone pills. You’ll also find it in the foods you eat, particularly in liver, egg yolks, nuts, avocados, and dairy products, among others. That makes biotin one of the easiest nutrients to get, especially considering the fact that you don’t need too much of it to make up your daily requirement. That said, vegans and some vegetarians might not be able to get enough of it unless they stock up on the non-animal sources of it.
And that’s another thing to keep in mind about biotin. Because it’s easily found in a balanced diet, and your body doesn’t need a lot of it, it’s easy to go overboard. While you can’t “overdose” on biotin per se, the FDA has issued a warning that taking biotin supplements can interfere with some lab tests. One test in particular, a test which is meant to tell the difference between heartburn and the pain preceding a heart attack, has medical professionals worried. It can also cause doctors to misdiagnose patients by falsely inflating or deflating values of various things in blood tests.
But this isn’t news. In fact, you’ll find that doctors commonly ask patients at the beginning of visits whether they are taking biotin supplements regularly, as they can build that into their decision on when to issue a lab result, and can know ahead of time whether a blood test can be affected by something in the patient’s diet.
As you can see, biotin is a fascinating nutrient. It’s claimed by some to be the key to glorious hair and nails, improved skin, and overall beauty, but on the other hand, it’s proved to be a problem for some in the medical community. Misunderstood, mysterious, or merely maligned, biotin is nonetheless an important part of our bodies’ processes, and should therefore be taken as seriously as anything else that makes up a wholesome and balanced diet.