Biotin Treatment

Biotin is a B vitamin involved in the body's normal metabolism, and it has a genuine and well-established role in the health of hair, skin and nails.

It is also one of the most heavily marketed supplements in the world, which is why this page is written the way it is. The claim that biotin helps hair and nails is true. The claim that everyone benefits from more of it is not.

Biotin deficiency produces clear effects on hair and nails, and correcting it produces a clear improvement. But true deficiency is uncommon in people eating a normal varied diet, and in someone who is not deficient the effect of supplementing is considerably smaller than the marketing suggests.

More importantly, hair loss and brittle nails have many causes — thyroid disorders, iron deficiency, hormonal change, medication, stress, and inherited pattern hair loss among them. Biotin does not treat any of those. Taking it while the actual cause goes unexamined costs you months.

So the consultation looks at what is actually happening before deciding whether biotin is part of the answer, and whether something else needs investigating first.

Biotin at supplement doses interferes with a number of common laboratory blood tests. It can make thyroid results look abnormal when they are not, and — the reason this matters most — it can distort troponin, the test used to diagnose a heart attack.

This is not a rare theoretical concern. It is a recognised cause of misleading results, and it is the single most useful thing on this page.

So if you are taking biotin, tell any doctor ordering blood tests, and mention it in an emergency department. Your practitioner here will tell you how long before a blood test to stop it.