When it comes to your hair, biotin is one of the must-have nutrients. Without this most effective of hair vitamins your locks lack luster, become brittle and look a little dull. In fact a deficiency of biotin might be one of the root causes of hair loss in females.

If you are having any type of problem with your hair, it could be due to a deficiency of this essential nutrient. Supplementation with biotin, also known as vitamin H or vitamin B7 has been known to improve and sometimes even completely reverse hair loss and also stop and reverse the graying or whitening of hair.

If you are watching a lot of your hair spiral down the drain or snagging in your hairbrush it is possible that you are suffering from a lack of biotin in your diet.  Usually other symptoms come in tandem with the hair loss including fatigue, dryness of skin, thin nails, depression, anemia and nausea. Numbing and tingling in the extremities can also be a symptom of a lack of biotin. So if you have hair loss and any of these symptoms it might be time to put yourself on a regiment of biotin and complimentary hair vitamins and nutrients.

Symptoms of severe deficiency include impaired immune system function, lethargy and hallucinations. Although it is likely that anyone could become deficient as the result of bad diet and start losing hair or experiencing dull or graying hair, it is less likely that you could become so deficient that you started “seeing things” or became sick enough to be hospitalized.

Usually we sabotage our biotin intake with bad eating habits.  Food processing techniques tend to destroy biotin and the result is bad nerves and hair loss because we are not getting that biotin we need to stay healthy.  The answer is to try and stay away from foods that are too refined or full of chemicals that could be adding no value to your daily nutritional requirements.

Egg whites also contain a chemical that binds to biotin very strongly and prevents it being absorbed into the blood from the intestines so if you are on a diet that asks that you never touch an egg yolk then you could also be causing yourself problems.

Sources of the nutrient can be found in breads, beans, dairy products, cauliflower, chocolate, kidneys, beans, liver, meat molasses, nuts, peanut butter, oysters, oatmeal and whole grains.  Foods that are very rich in biotin include egg yolks, mushrooms, bananas and brewer’s yeast.  As you can see a lot of dairy and high carb products that are often taboo in a diet contain biotin, which is necessary for strong shiny hair.

You can also get natural biotin in supplement form as well. It is usually sold in 10mcg, 50 mcg and 100 mcg sizes and also in supplements sold as hair vitamins. It is a water soluble vitamin, which means it is impossible to take too much of it as it is excreted in the urine.