“Biotin?”Here!Vitamin B7
Appears in 4 scanned products.
As a supplement
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist.
Roll Call does not check drug interactions or assess personal safety.
Biotin is a water-soluble B vitamin involved in the metabolism of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. It occurs naturally in foods such as eggs, nuts, and organ meats.
Why it’s used
Taken to meet daily biotin needs, and marketed for hair, skin, and nail support, though these uses are largely outside of documented deficiency.
What the evidence says
NIH ODS notes that true biotin deficiency is rare and that biotin is essential to normal metabolism. Evidence that supplemental biotin improves hair, skin, or nail appearance in people who are not deficient is limited and mostly restricted to small or low-quality studies. NIH ODS also flags that high-dose biotin can interfere with certain laboratory test results.
Context
No adult RDA has been set; intake recommendations are given as an Adequate Intake of 30 mcg/day for adults, per NIH ODS. Trials on hair or nail appearance have used varying, inconsistently reported doses, making comparison difficult.
Rumors
Taking biotin makes hair grow faster and thicker.
Sources unreachable — that's our end, not a finding.
What was measured is not yet noted.
- A Review of the Use of Biotin for Hair Loss (Peer-reviewed) · Funding not checked
Who’s saying this
- Walgreen Co. — a retailer: pharmacy retailer selling OTC medicines and offering vaccines
How we know who this is
- “© Copyright 2023 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved” (their page)
- “Learn about acetaminophen vs aspirin vs ibuprofen at Walgreens.” (their page)
How much is a reference amount
- 30 mcg a dayfor adults 19 and over · Adequate Intake
No upper limit has been set — the data was not sufficient to set one, which is a gap in the research rather than a finding about safety.
An AI, not an RDA — the FNB found the data insufficient to derive an RDA. No UL.
Every applicable line is shown because we don’t know which one is yours, and a reference intake is a target for a population, not a threshold for harm.