I have a horse who has terribly dry hooves that tend to split and crack more than normal. To counter this, he has a powdered biotin supplement in his grain every morning and night. This makes his hair grow like CRAZY! I'm not even joking, his hair probably grows an inch every month, if not more.
    Does biotin have this same effect in humans? Why or why not? Does biotin at least help make hair stronger and healthier?

Hi Pixie,  yes it does!  I was taking it as well and my hair grew and inch a month too!  I stopped for awhile and now I am bac on it.  It also made my nails stronger :)  Since I had stopped my nails started to split again and my hair growth went down to nil.  I dont now exacty how it works but it does!  8-)

    That makes sense, horse hooves and human fingernails are made of the same stuff!
   

Okay, I bought I biotin supplement today (buy one get one free at Kroger's!). I have crappy nails too, so even if my hair doesn't grow faster at least my nails might stop splitting. It has 1000% of the daily biotin intake, and it recommends taking 3 pills a day, with food. That seems a bit much to me, I think I'll try just two a day. They taste awful, but if I put them in the fridge they don't taste as bad.
I'll see what happens and let you know!

I take 1,000mcg (or 1mg) of Biotin daily. It has made my nails stronger, my hair thicker, and when it was in its growing phase 1in. a month. However it does take about 6 months for it to create a noticeable difference. So hang in there, and good luck!

so as far as we all know, there are no side effects for taking extra biotin (since it is found in many of the foods i already eat)? i know some vitamins can be problematic if more than the daily amount is taken. i'm thinking about taking it.

Quote:

There is no current Tolerable Upper Limit (UL) set for biotin as research has indicated that high levels of intake by humans has no detrimental effects.

McGuire M, Beerman KA. Nutritional sciences: from fundamentals to food. California: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007.

There actually is something that can make your hair grow faster? I'll have to tell my sister!

For now I'm going to go see which foods in my house contain B7/vitamin H/biotin.  :)

The vitamin that I found recommends three pills a day, which is 3,000 mcg, which just seems a bit high to me. I'm sticking with one pill, or 1,000 mcg a day. I've found a few cases that people have reported hemorrhages in their eyes when taking too much biotin, but nothing scientific says there are any adverse side effects.

thanks, bikerbraid. biotin sounds great-save for that eye hemorrhaging thing that hopefully isn't true.

My dermatologist actually recommended I take 3mg biotin daily. It seems to only come in a vitamin with something else (perhaps because of the small doseage) so I replaced my calcium supplement with a biotin(1000mcg)+calcium(33% of RDA).

Just recently started doing this, so no results yet. Except that Ive discovered taking anything 3 times a day is really annoying to me, and so far hasnt happened consistently.   :-/

Agreed! I can barely remember to take one a day! I have to put it in the fridge in the morning (if I put the whole bottle in there it will surely get thrown out for being "in the way"). If I take it warm, it tastes awful and I end up not swallowing it. But if I put it in the fridge, a lot of that taste goes away. Good thing I hopped on here to look at this post, I have forgotten to take it for about a week!