What is the maximum daily intake of BIOTIN that your body can use?

Question

The RDA is 300 mcg but I've seen biotin supplements of doses higher than 5000 mcg..apparently from what ive heard there is no such thing as "biotin toxicity" as the excess is just metabolised and flushed out in urine..this seems like a waste to me..why take 5000 mcg when your body can only use 300 mcg? or am I getting this wrong..can the human body use up to 5000 mcg (5.0 mg!) of biotin daily?

Answer 1

I agree with you !! As Biotin is a member of the B complex group of vitamins it is a water soluble vitamin ............. as such our bodies can neither store or produce them so any excess ingested will simply be excreted in our urine. Therefore, it would depend how deficient you are in this particular vitamin as to how much would be utilised by the body. The more deficient you are the more effective the uptake of the vitamin .................. The only reason I could think of to take an excessive amount of 5000mcg per day (along with all the other B vitamins) would be to perhaps aide in recovery from a debilitating illness such as chronic fatigue syndrome, alcoholism, antidepressant abuse or severe depression??

CHEERS
♥

Answer 2

This is a complex issue, so I will try to touch on a few important 'highlights'.

First, there is no RDA for Biotin, only an AI (Adequate Intake) recommendation. Vitamins are given an AI instead of an RDA when there is not enough scientific evidence to set an RDA. AIs are based on average intakes and do not indicate actual requirements. Additionally, RDAs, AIs, etc. only apply to healthy people - not to people with chronic health problems (e.g. most American adults).

High dose supplementaiton of biotin may be appropriate for the following situations:
1) people suffering from holocarboxylase synthetase deficiency
2) people with biotinidase deficiency
3) people with poor biotin status requiring a rapid improvement in that status
4) people with malabsorption disorders.

Ingestion of pharmacologic doses of biotin has been considered safe. However, there is evidence that extremely high doses can lead to substantial changes in gene expression patterns. Some evidence indicates that certain of these changes in gene expression may not be beneficial for optimum health. Whether other gene expression changes might be beneficial is conceiveable, but are yet to be determined by scientific research.

Lastly, Biotin, Lipoic acid, and Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5) share the same transport system for cellular uptake. High doses of any of these can thus lead to decreased uptake of the others into cells (via competitive inhibition). It may be appropriate to take high doses of Biotin to 'balance' this uptake if a person is taking high doses of one or both of the other nutrients that compete for this transport mechanism.

Hope this wasn't too complicated to be helpful for you.