Does Biotin (or Biotin Shampoo) Really Work for Hair Loss?

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Let’s talk about biotin for hair and skin. You may have even noticed biotin shampoo for hair loss—does it really work?

Biotin is vitamin B7. Biotin is especially important for pregnant women and children. A deficiency of biotin in a pregnant mother could lead to malformations in the growth and development of the child.

Biotin acts as a coenzyme in the formation of proteins. There are a lot of different fats and proteins that make up body tissue. It’s a helper enzyme in the formation of myelin, hair, and skin.

The microbes in the large intestine make just as much biotin as you get from your diet. But, the majority of biotin you get from your diet is not in a free form—the biotin made by your microbes is. Anything that destroys your microbes, especially antibiotics, can have a negative effect on biotin.

The RDA for biotin is not fully agreed upon, and it’s difficult to get biotin from your diet. However, a few foods rich in biotin are egg yolks, liver, kidneys, and certain cheeses.

The top causes of biotin deficiency are:

• Raw egg whites

• The keto diet (causes the demand for biotin to increase)

• Anti-seizure medication

• Smoking

• Alcohol

• Lowered stomach acid

• Pregnancy or breastfeeding

• High amounts of exercise

• Age

• Genetic issues

If you’re experiencing symptoms like keto rash, hair thinning, or hair loss on keto, it could be because of a lack of biotin in the diet.

A subclinical deficiency in biotin could lead to thinning hair, hair loss, or skin rashes. However, symptoms of a major biotin deficiency can be more severe.

Symptoms of a biotin deficiency:

• Alopecia

• Eczema

• Seizures

• Candida

• Depression

Biotin cream or shampoo can be absorbed through the skin and may be beneficial for a subclinical biotin deficiency. You may also want to include biotin in your diet and even take a supplement form.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's talk about bioten and the question is does it really work for your hair as in bioten shampoo?
0:06.0	Will it actually help you with hair loss or other problems? What is bioten?
0:11.0	It's vitamin B 7, so it's one of the B vitamins having to do with a couple of German
0:15.7	words which describe skin and hair.
0:19.5	And bioten itself comes from the Greek word bi which means life and then the chemical name
0:24.9	in as in biotin meaning the formation of life because of the importance of biotin in a
0:32.0	growing child and a growing child.
0:33.4	And if a child is deficient because the mother's deficient,
0:36.4	that child will have all sorts of malformations
0:39.0	in growth and development.
0:40.8	And how biotene really works, it acts as a co-enzyme, like a helper enzyme in the
0:47.6	formation of protein, like even in the formation of omega-3 fatty acids and as you know there's a lot of
0:54.9	different fats and proteins that make up body tissue. One study I found using very high amounts of
1:01.9	biotin for MS, which is an autoimmune disease involving with the destruction
1:07.2	of the fat layer around the nerve, which is called the myelin sheath.
1:12.3	And so biotene is kind of a helper in the formation of myelin
1:15.8	but it's also a helper in the formation of hair, normal skin.
1:21.0	Now I think the most important thing to know about biotin is that there's a dramatic effect in biotin when someone takes antibiotics.
1:30.5	Because of the microbes in your large intestine actually make biotin.
1:36.0	Now what's unique about that is that it makes just as much as you get from your diet,
1:42.0	but it makes it mostly in a free form. You see when you get
1:46.1	biotene from food, most of it's locked up in proteins, so you have to digest and break that up. So the majority of biotene you get from your diet is not in a free form like you would get from the microbes in your intestine.
	...

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