biotin

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For serving size for specific foods see the Nutrient Rating Chart.

Basic Description Relationship with Other

Role in Health Support Nutrients
Summary of Food Sources Risk of Dietary Toxicity
Nutrient Rating Chart Disease Checklist
Impact of Cooking, Storage and Processing Public Health
Risk of Dietary Deficiency Recommendations
Other Circumstances that Might Contribute to References
Deficiency

Basic Description
Biotin is a B-complex vitamin that has been identified as a necessary nutrient for a
century, but has only begun to be understood in the past two decades. It has also been
previously referred to as coenzyme R, vitamin H, and vitamin B7, with the different names
attesting to the confusion surrounding its role in normal metabolism.

Biotin first came to the attention of researchers for what is still its most famous
characteristic—that raw egg whites can interfere with biotin nutrition. (For more on this
please see the Impact of Cooking, Storage, and Processing section below.) More
recently, we have learned about its central role in many pathways of metabolism. Most
importantly, we see that biotin plays key roles in fat and sugar metabolism, roles that
make deficiency of biotin show up in multiple and unrelated ways.

There is still much we don't know about biotin, however. Importantly, there are still major
questions about how much biotin is needed to prevent deficiency.

We also have only a partial understanding of how much biotin is found in commonly eaten
foods. Many of the foods that our charts say do not contain biotin actually more
accurately contain an unknown quantity of the vitamin. Soybeans, mushrooms, and
pumpkin and sunflower seeds are examples of foods with substantial amounts of biotin
that are not quantified in the databases we use to determine the biotin concentrations in
foods.

Some of the difficulty we have in determining the food content of biotin lies in the
shortcomings of our methods for biotin analysis in the laboratory. Three primary methods
of biotin analysis involve (1) bacterial growth studies, (2) studies in which biotin binds to a
protein called avidin (or sometimes streptavidin), and (3) dye-based studies using a
chemical called 4'-hydroxyazobenzene-2-carboxylic acid. All three methods have known
limitations, and the results of these different methods can be quite inconsistent. In short,
researchers are still figuring out how to accurately measure the biotin content of food.

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While we are still learning about how rich many of the World's Healthiest Foods are as
biotin sources, we already know that we have tomatoes as an excellent source of biotin,
and almonds as a very good source. Among the World's Healthiest Foods, you will also
find 5 additional very good sources of biotin and 13 good sources of this vitamin.

Role in Health Support

Blood sugar balance

Diets low in biotin impair the production of insulin, a key hormone in the balancing of
blood sugar. More recently, researchers have shown that deficiency of biotin also affects
the way insulin acts on cells, giving a second reason that low biotin intake potentially
creates problems.

Happily, many of the biotin-rich foods we list are also strong sources of fiber, which make
them great staples for people with blood sugar problems. Demonstrating this point, a
Spanish research group reported that adding about an ounce of mixed nuts into the diet
for 12 weeks led to significant improvement in blood sugar control in a group of people at
high risk of developing diabetes.

Skin health

Deficiency of biotin is also known to cause skin rash. This symptom occurs because
biotin is necessary to build healthy fats in the skin. These fats keep the skin supple and
moist, and when they are gone, the skin becomes flaky and irritated.

Back in the 1940s, a researcher demonstrated that adding high biotin foods into the diet
of a lactating mother reduced symptoms of cradle cap in nursing infants. Although this
research hasn't been followed up in more modern settings, we think that nursing moms
could consider focusing on foods high in both biotin and omega-3 fatty acids , including
salmon and eggs from pasture-raised chickens.

Summary of Food Sources

Nuts, root vegetables, and eggs are among our best sources of biotin. Each can contain
more than a quarter of your daily biotin need in a single serving.

Although their contribution is not fully noted in the charts on this page, tofu, mushrooms,
and many types of seeds can be biotin-rich foods. Each of these can contain close to
10% of a daily requirement per serving.

Other animal foods like milk and meat can make up another chunk of your biotin
requirement. Expect 2-10% of the daily requirement from each serving in this category.

As noted above, we are still learning about the average biotin content of many important
staple foods. As such, the databases that we use to score nutrient content of foods
contain some large gaps when it comes to biotin. It is likely that many of the foods you

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see listed as not containing any biotin may actually be contributing to your total intake; we
just don't know exactly how much.

The limitations of our current knowledge make it hard to do a daily diet plan that would
ensure an adequate intake of biotin. Since we know that an average adult eats about
double the daily requirement we believe that you don't need to worry about obtaining your
daily requirement for biotin from the World's Healthiest Foods eating plan (for more on
this, see the Risk of Dietary Deficiency section below).

Nutrient Rating Chart

Introduction to Nutrient Rating System Chart

In order to better help you identify foods that feature a high concentration of nutrients for
the calories they contain, we created a Food Rating System. This system allows us to
highlight the foods that are especially rich in particular nutrients. The following chart
shows the World's Healthiest Foods that are either an excellent, very good, or good
source of biotin. Next to each food name, you'll find the serving size we used to calculate
the food's nutrient composition, the calories contained in the serving, the amount of biotin
contained in one serving size of the food, the percent Daily Value (DV%) that this amount
represents, the nutrient density that we calculated for this food and nutrient, and the
rating we established in our rating system. For most of our nutrient ratings, we adopted
the government standards for food labeling that are found in the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration's "Reference Values for Nutrition Labeling." Read more background
information and details of our rating system.

World's Healthiest Foods ranked as quality sources of

biotin

World's

Healthiest
Serving Amount DRI/DV Nutrient Foods

Food Size
Cals (mcg)
(%)
Density
Rating

Tomatoes 1 cup 32.4 7.20 24 13.3 excellent

Almonds 0.25 cup 132.2 14.72 49 6.7 very good

Eggs 1 each 77.5 8.00 27 6.2 very good

Onions 1 cup 92.4 7.98 27 5.2 very good

Carrots 1 cup 50.0 6.10 20 7.3 very good

Romaine 2 cups 16.0 1.79 6 6.7 very good

Lettuce

Cauliflower 1 cup 28.5 1.61 5 3.4 very good

Sweet Potato 1 cup 180.0 8.60 29 2.9 good

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 Oats 0.25 cup 151.7 7.80 26 3.1 good

Peanuts 0.25 cup 206.9 6.40 21 1.9 good

Walnuts 0.25 cup 196.2 5.70 19 1.7 good

Salmon 4 oz 157.6 4.54 15 1.7 good

Yogurt 1 cup 149.4 3.92 13 1.6 good

Banana 1 medium 105.0 3.07 10 1.8 good

Raspberries 1 cup 64.0 2.34 8 2.2 good

Cow's milk 4 oz 74.4 2.32 8 1.9 good

Strawberries 1 cup 46.1 1.58 5 2.1 good

Watermelon 1 cup 45.6 1.52 5 2.0 good

Grapefruit 0.50 41.0 1.28 4 1.9 good

medium

Cucumber 1 cup 15.6 0.94 3 3.6 good

World's Healthiest
Foods Rating
Rule

excellent DRI/DV>=75% OR

Density>=7.6 AND DRI/DV>=10%

very good DRI/DV>=50% OR

Density>=3.4 AND DRI/DV>=5%

good DRI/DV>=25% OR

Density>=1.5 AND DRI/DV>=2.5%

Impact of Cooking, Storage and Processing

Biotin is relatively stable to most common cooking techniques. For example, when you
soak and boil your beans, you'll only lose about 10% of the biotin during preparation,
much less change than you'll see with most other B vitamins. The canning process is a
little harder on the nutrient, leading to losses of 40-80% of the original biotin. Luckily, most
of our WHFoods that provide excellent, very good, and good amounts of biotin are foods
that you would be very unlikely to buy in canned form. For example, we know that many
people like to purchase beans like navies, pintos, or limas in canned form, but none of
these beans are foods that you would be turning to for biotin even in non-canned form.

Raw eggs contain a compound called avidin that binds and prevents absorption of biotin.
Avidin has such an affinity that it doesn't just bind up the biotin in eggs, but also that
found in other foods eaten with raw eggs. Because of the risk of bacterial infection from

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raw eggs, we don't recommend regular inclusion of them in the diet, anyway.

Risk of Dietary Deficiency

At least compared to the adequate intake recommendation standard, it appears that biotin
deficiency is not very common in America. Most estimates have put average biotin intake
between 30 and 40 mcg per day, or just above daily requirement.

There is a problem with these research models, however. The tables these researchers
use to rate the biotin content of foods are often incomplete, so this type of analysis can
systematically under estimate our daily intake. A Canadian study that more carefully
analyzed each food found that average intake was closer to 60 mcg per day, double the
adult daily requirement. We feel that this estimate is more representative of the dietary
patterns of the Western world, and that the risk of deficiency is small.

Ensuring that your diet includes legumes, nuts, seeds, and vegetables on a regular or
daily basis will be your best way to prevent a deficiency of biotin. Given that these foods
are heavily represented in our World's Healthiest Foods sample menus, we believe that
our diet plan is a particularly good way to ensure biotin nutrition.

Other Circumstances that Might Contribute to Deficiency

As noted above, consumption of raw egg whites can interfere with biotin absorption. This
is due to a constituent called avidin which is destroyed by cooking. It is not currently clear
how many raw eggs you need to eat, or for how long you'll have to eat them, to induce a
deficiency state. A 2009 report concluded that one man developed symptomatic biotin
deficiency from eating the equivalent of two raw egg whites daily for three months. As
mentioned previously, we do not recommend intake of raw eggs on any kind of regular
basis for safety reasons

A number of medications, including seizure drugs, can contribute to biotin deficiency. This
may be the most common reason for biotin deficiency in the United States at this time.

Relationship with Other Nutrients

Many of the processes involving biotin also require pantothenic acid. Interestingly, these
two nutrients are absorbed in the same site in the intestine. There have not been any
published reports, however, of negative interaction between dietary biotin and pantothenic
acid.

Risk of Dietary Toxicity

There has never been a report of biotin toxicity from foods in any human or animal model
that we have been able to find. Similarly, the National Academy of Sciences was unable
to find any evidence for biotin toxicity, even at doses going up to nearly ten thousand

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times the adequate intake level recommendation. You can be confident that the amount of
biotin found even in the richest food sources is not causing you any harm when these
foods are consumed in everyday serving sizes.

Disease Checklist
Hair loss
Brittle nails
Skin rash / seborrheic dermatitis / cradle cap
Diabetes
Seizures
Pregnancy

Public Health Recommendations

In 1998, the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences established a
set of age-specific Adequate Intake (AI) levels for biotin. These are summarized in the
chart below. These AI recommendations are used as the reference standard in the charts
on this page. These AIs are as follows.

0-6 months: 5 mcg

6-12 months: 6 mcg
1-3 years: 8 mcg
4-8 years: 12 mcg
9-13 years: 20 mcg
14-18 years: 25 mcg
19+ years: 30 mcg
Pregnant women: 30 mcg
Lactating women: 35 mcg

There is no established Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for biotin. Given that biotin
doses several thousand times the AI have been used in medical settings, we believe it is
extremely unlikely that dietary biotin presents any health risk, even in the most unusual
circumstances.

The Daily Value (DV) for biotin was established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
at 300 mcg per day per 2000 calories. It's worth noting that this DV is dramatically higher
than the newer and better-researched National Academy of Sciences recommendation.
Because of its newer and better-researched status, we used the National Academy of
Sciences standard of 30 micrograms for adults 19 and older as our WHFoods
recommended intake level for biotin.

References
Ball, GFM. Biotin. In: Vitamins In Foods: Analysis, Bioavailability, and Stability. CRC
Press, Boca Raton, FL, 220-30; 2005.

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 Cammalleri L, Bentivegna P, Malaguarnera M. Egg white injury. Intern Emerg Med
2009;4:79-81.
Casas-Aqustench P, Lopez-Uriarte P, Bullo M, et al. Effects of one serving of mixed
nuts on serum lipids, insulin resistance and inflammatory markers in patients with
the metabolic syndrome. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis 2001;21:126-35.
Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine. Dietary reference intakes for
thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, biotin,
and choline. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1998;58-86.
Larrieta E, Vega-Monroy ML, Vital P, et al. Effects of biotin deficiency on pancreatic
islet morphology, insulin sensitivity and glucose homeostasis. J Nutr Biochem
2012;23:392-9.
Mock DM. Marginal biotin deficiency is common in normal human pregnancy and is
highly teratogenic in mice. J Nutr 2009;139:154-7.
Said HM. Biotin: the forgotten vitamin. Am J Clin Nutr 2002;75:179-80.
Staggs CG, Sealey WM, McCabe BJ, et al. Determination of the biotin content of
select foods using accurate and sensitive HPLC / avidin binding. J Food Compost
Anal 2004;17:767-76.
Stratton SL, Horvath TD, Boqusiewicz A, et al. Plasma concentration of 3-
hydroxyisovaleryl carnitine is an earlyl and sensitive indicator of marginal biotin
deficiency in humans. Am J Clin Nutr 2010;92:1399-405.
Zempleni J, Wijeratne SKS, and Hassan YI. Biotin. Biofactors 2009, 35(1): 36-46.
doi:10.1002/biof.8

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