Does Biotin Help With Hair Loss Or Hair Shedding?

Does Biotin Help With Hair Loss Or Hair Shedding?

I get a lot of questions about biotin to help with hair regrowth, hair loss,  and shedding as well as questions about whether a lack of biotin or a B vitamin deficiency can contribute to female thinning. I’ll address these concerns in the following article.

Biotin And Your Hair:  Biotin and keratin are really what makes up your hair and nails.  And, your body doesn’t naturally manufacture this.  Your body depends upon the food that you eat to get enough.  You can find biotin in egg yolks, beans, nuts, liver, and brown rice, among other things. Brewer’s yeast and royal jelly are supplements that contain very high, concentrated amounts.

Although a lack of biotin can contribute to fragile hair that easily breaks or lacks shine, it’s less common for a deficiency to be the cause of your hair loss.  In a western diet, this is actually pretty rare.  Yes, taking a supplement can contribute to the appearance and texture of more healthy hair and regrowth, but I have not seen many people who just begin taking this supplement and have a sudden stopping of their shedding and hair loss.  Probably the most popular supplement is one called biosil and I do use this in my regimen to support the appearance of my hair but I don’t believe for a second that this has been responsible for my recovery.  It may be a small piece of the puzzle, but so many things are more important.

Discovering Why The Hair Loss Is Happening: The most important part of stopping hair loss is discovering or uncovering the trigger.  You could have telogen effluvium (shedding due to medical or seasonal causes), AGA (hereditary or genetic thinning or loss which is usually more patterned), AA (autoimmune  loss), or loss due to hormonal changes or scalp problems.

Taking a supplement really does not address and / or stop these issues.  Until you are able to first pinpoint the issue, and second, fix it, you’re not going to be able to properly address your regrowth.  The recovery cycle does not start until you eliminate the trigger or cause.  It really does little to be regrowing healthy, shiny hair if it is only going to fall out again.

The Three Steps Of Female Hair Loss Treatment: Essentially, to recap, this is a three step process.  You must first determine why your shedding or loss is happening.  Sometimes, you will be able to do something abut this and sometimes you won’t.  For example, if you’ve just given birth or have had surgery, you can’t eliminate this trigger.  You can only wait it out and support a healthy scalp. 

But, if you’re having thyroid or adrenal issues or your hair is being choked out by DHT or androgens, then of course there is absolutely things that you can do.  You can work with your doctor to stabilize your medical issues and you can rid your scalp or at least cut down on the damaging androgens.  This must happen first.  Healthy hair can not again occur in this environment.

Once you’re successful with this, the shedding is eventually going to slow. 

Now that the cycle is slowing, you should turn your attention to a healthy scalp.  Sometimes, the issues that I discussed before will cause a great deal of inflammation and in rare cases, scarring.  You must greatly reduce this inflammation and also any clogging or waxy build up so that the hair that is trying to regrow won’t be thwarted during the process.

Finally, you should focus on nutrition and scalp stimulation so that the regrowth that does come in is as thick as possible so that it offers sufficient coverage. This is where supplements like biotin come in, but as you can see, this at the end of the process, not at the beginning.

How do I know all of this? Because I lived it. In my quest to end my hair loss, I looked at my triggers, my iron, my thyroid, my adrenals, my hormones, and my scalp’s health. It was a long, hard, frustrating journey which all but wrecked my self esteem but I finally found something that helped quite a bit. You can read a very personal story at

Ava’s hair loss blog is at

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