Supplement evidence

017 / 575Vitamin

Biotin

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The short answer

Treating rare biotin deficiency.

Evidence and scope: Common claim not supported
This status does not grade the ingredient for every goal, outcome, or person.
Important limitation: Hair, skin, and nail benefits are not well supported for people without deficiency.
Before deciding: High doses can dangerously distort thyroid, cardiac troponin, and other laboratory tests.

01 / PRACTICAL GUIDE

Dose, absorption, and combinations

These are indication-specific reference or studied ranges—not a personalized prescription. Start with the objective, then check the form, label, medicines, and health conditions.

Reference range by objective

Meeting usual needs30 mcg/day adequate intake

Reference or studied range—not a personalized prescription. The product label or a clinician may specify a different dose.

Dose source ↗

More is not automatically better. A clinician or product label may specify a different amount.

Absorption / solubilityWater-soluble

Water-soluble or readily water-dispersible. This does not mean excess is always harmless.

How it is commonly taken

May be taken with or without food.

Do not combine casually

Stop and disclose high-dose biotin before thyroid, cardiac-troponin, hormone, or other biotin-based lab tests.

Dose and use source ↗

Dose and use links lead to primary or official source material. Search links are discovery tools, not proof that every returned paper applies.

02 / EVIDENCE

What the research says

We keep supportive, mixed, negative, safety, and contextual findings together. The headline never replaces the underlying papers.

4research papers in this ledger

6unique primary studies represented

665unique participants represented

These are audited counts for this JIVANA collection, not search-result totals. Participants are counted once when multiple papers use the same cohort; review papers are not added again to participant totals.

Open the research timelineResearch timeline

Entries are ordered by publication year. A study period appears only when the source reports it.

2024

Does not support the tested claimPMID 39148962

Biotin for Hair Loss: Teasing Out the Evidence

The best-quality placebo-controlled study found no hair-growth difference; the other two biased, special-population studies showed no striking benefit. High-quality evidence does not support routine biotin for hair loss without deficiency.

Published: 20243 primary studies represented

Study design and methods

Design: Structured literature review of three non-case-report studies
Population: People seeking hair growth, including isotretinoin users and women after sleeve gastrectomy
Intervention: Oral biotin supplementation
Outcome: Hair growth or hair quality

Open research record ↗

2021

Safety signalPMID 34042535

Biotin Interference in Assays for Thyroid Hormones, Thyrotropin and Thyroglobulin

Biotin altered specific Roche thyroid assays and falsely lowered thyroglobulin on Siemens IMMULITE, with greatest observed interference two hours after dosing. The effect is assay-specific, not a true physiologic thyroid change.

Published: 2021Duration: 8 days, with sampling 2 and 5 hours after dosingn=13 participants

Study design and methods

Design: Prospective multi-platform laboratory-interference study
Population: 13 adults
Intervention: Biotin 10 mg/day
Outcome: Thyroid hormones, TSH, thyroglobulin, and assay-platform differences

Open research record ↗

2020

Does not support the tested claimPMID 33222767 · NCT02936037

Safety and efficacy of MD1003 in patients with progressive multiple sclerosis (SPI2)

High-dose biotin did not significantly improve disability or walking speed. Adverse-event rates were similar, but clinically misleading biotin-based laboratory results occurred despite mitigation.

Published: 2020Duration: 15–27 months; mean placebo-controlled exposure 20.1 monthsn=642 participants

Study design and methods

Design: International randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial
Population: 642 adults with progressive multiple sclerosis
Intervention: Pharmaceutical-grade biotin 100 mg three times daily or placebo
Outcome: Confirmed disability or walking-speed improvement and adverse events

Funding or conflict note: Funded by MedDay Pharmaceuticals, the MD1003 manufacturer.

Open research record ↗

2020

Safety signalPMID 32118725 · ChiCTR1800020472

Assessment of biotin interference in thyroid function tests

Both doses distorted some Roche and Beckman thyroid assays but not the tested Abbott platform. Interference lasted about 8 hours after 5 mg and up to one or two days after 10 mg, depending on platform.

Published: 2020Duration: 7 days, with testing through 2 days after withdrawaln=10 participants

Study design and methods

Design: Prospective dose and washout study across three immunoassay platforms
Population: 10 healthy adults
Intervention: Biotin 5 or 10 mg/day
Outcome: Thyroid-test interference by platform and time after stopping

Open research record ↗

Unscreened discovery appendix—not evidence229 candidate publicationsSearch run: Aug 21, 2026

Complete for the displayed PubMed query at the search timestamp—not for all databases or every possible synonym. Candidates can be irrelevant, duplicate the same study, or report negative findings. They are never summed as evidence or participants until screened.

03 / SOURCES

Start with the source material

Official evidence overviewNIH Office of Dietary Supplements Live PubMed discovery searchNational Library of Medicine

The live search is for discovery only. Search-result counts change and are not included in the audited totals above.

Recent PubMed discovery recordsDirect links to the first 12 records returned by the reproducible search. These are discovery candidates—not reviewed summaries or a count of supportive findings.

04 / EXPERT CONTEXT

Expert context—not evidence

Expert positions are dated context—not scientific evidence. They never raise the evidence status or become consensus by repetition.

No direct, source-verified endorsement is currently recorded. Research authorship or discussion alone is not treated as endorsement.