What Is Biotin? A Plain-English Guide To Vitamin B7 In Foods

Biotin at a glance

Biotin is a water-soluble vitamin and a member of the B vitamin group. It is also known as vitamin B7, and in older books you may find it called vitamin H or coenzyme R. Like the other B vitamins, it dissolves in water, and it is needed in only tiny quantities.

The name has an interesting history. It comes from the Greek word bios, meaning life, the same root that gives us biology. Scientists in the early twentieth century noticed a growth factor in yeast and egg yolk, and the substance eventually received the name biotin once its chemical identity was established.

Its relationship to the other B vitamins is simple. They are all water-soluble, they all appear in small amounts across many foods, and they are all listed as separate lines on a Supplement Facts panel when a product includes them.

The chemistry, kept simple

Biotin is a small organic molecule built around two joined rings with a short tail. It is made by bacteria, yeasts, molds and many plants. Animals, including people, obtain it from food, and some is also produced by microbes living in the gut.

In foods, biotin is often attached to proteins rather than floating freely. Cooking and digestion separate some of it from those proteins, which is one reason food tables carry caveats and show approximate ranges rather than exact values.

A small chemistry aside: the structure of biotin includes a sulfur atom, which is part of why it has its own distinct profile among the B vitamins. You do not need that detail to read a label, but it shows how much variety hides behind the shared letter B.

Where biotin occurs in foods

Biotin is found in a wide range of foods, in small amounts. Organ meats are among the richest, and eggs are the best-known everyday source, particularly the yolk. A number of plant foods contribute as well.

Foods frequently listed as containing biotin include:

Biotin is also made in nature by many microbes, which is why fermented foods and some dairy items can contain trace amounts. These are minor contributors compared with the foods listed above, and amounts depend on how a food is produced.

• Egg yolks, cooked
• Liver and other organ meats
• Salmon and other fish
• Almonds, peanuts, walnuts and sunflower seeds
• Sweet potatoes
• Legumes such as soybeans and lentils
• Mushrooms, bananas and avocados

Why cooked eggs get the mention

You will notice the phrase cooked eggs in nutrition guides for a simple reason. Raw egg white contains a protein called avidin that binds tightly to biotin. Heating the egg changes avidin, which is why reference tables specify cooked eggs when they list biotin sources.

It is a small fact about food chemistry, and it explains the wording found in many articles. Ordinary meals with cooked eggs, nuts and vegetables are the typical setting for biotin in the diet.

Several foods that contain biotin are also commonly eaten for other reasons. A breakfast of eggs with toast, a snack of almonds or a dinner with sweet potato are everyday meals that happen to appear in biotin food lists. Nothing about them needs to change; they are simply the ordinary setting in which this vitamin occurs.

Different reference databases give different figures for the same food, because testing methods for biotin are not as standardized as for some other vitamins. Take published numbers as approximate.

How biotin appears on labels

On a Supplement Facts panel, biotin appears as a line item of its own, written biotin or sometimes d-biotin, which is the natural-form name. The amount is shown in micrograms, written mcg, because the quantities are small. Older products used milligrams or the abbreviation mg, so check the unit carefully.

The percent daily value column may show a large percentage, because the reference daily value for biotin is itself a small number measured in micrograms. This is simply how the arithmetic works for a nutrient with a small reference amount, and it appears the same way on many B vitamin lines.

Practical label-reading tips

A few small habits make biotin lines easy to interpret:

Some product labels group B vitamins together in the order of their numbers, so biotin often appears between vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 in a list. Looking in that neighborhood saves a few seconds on an unfamiliar label.

• Confirm the unit: mcg is micrograms, mg is milligrams, and one milligram equals one thousand micrograms.
• Look for the name biotin, d-biotin or vitamin B7, all of which refer to the same vitamin.
• Check the serving size so you know what the amount refers to.
• Compare with the percent daily value to put the number in context.

Biotin in the LumiVelle label

Biotin is among the named ingredients in LumiVelle, a daily gummy dietary supplement that also names Korean gelatin, PDRN, resveratrol, vitamin C, vitamins A, D, E, B6 and B12, folate, pantothenic acid, iodine and zinc. Each bottle contains 30 gummies, and the suggested use is one gummy daily, preferably with a meal, or as the label directs.

The Supplement Facts panel printed on the bottle gives the exact amount of biotin per serving, and it is the right place to look when you want the specifics.