So my question is around biotin level. So on an older podcast,
I don't remember which one you mentioned egg white consumption might create a biotin deficiency.
Right.
I have eaten eight to nine egg whites and one to two whole eggs as part of my breakfast
since the early two thousands, I looked into that a little bit and I do have a red patchy,
scaly rash around my mouth and nose that flares up periodically that started around
2006. I treat that with ketoconazole cream as prescribed by my dermatologist.
That kind of takes care of it. But anyway, that plus hair loss, which may be hereditary.
I thought maybe it makes sense for me to have a biotin test. So I did, and the results came back
in the normal range per the labs range, but it was in the bottom 10%. So I had this done at Boston
at Cambridge Biomedical in Massachusetts, and the test result was 492.5 Picograms per milliliter
in a range of 221 to 3004. I wanted to see if you would be concerned about biotin deficiency
in this scenario and what your view of optimal range would be.
It definitely sounds like it could be a biotin deficiency and the plasma or serum biotin level
is not a good marker of biotin status because it's not very sensitive. And so, if you're in the
bottom 10% of it, I would definitely take that as a red flag that you might have biotin deficiency,
the best test for biotin, well, the gold standard for biotin deficiency is beta-hydroxyisovalerate
in the urine after a leucine challenge. I don't know how you'd get anyone to give you that, but
the next best thing is to get a urinary organic acid test that has as beta-Hydroxyisovaleric acid
on it and I know that the Genova ION panel, which is the one I usually prefer has that,
but a lot of other ones do too. So I, if you get one, I would just check and see whether the
beta-hydroxyisovalerate is on the list of analytes. Yeah, I would, I wouldn't conclude
anything just yet, but I would keep biotin deficiency in the running for an explanation.
Certainly. Thank you. Are there any other, those are the symptoms that I had detected
or just noticed or thought... Is there anything else in particular that you
look for in that kind of scenario? Well, had you not mentioned biotin,
biotin would have been at the top but there's a very strong overlap between...
And I mentioned this in a previous question is a very strong overlap between biotin B6,
Omega six fatty acids and riboflavin. Okay, well thanks Chris I will check into
this test and follow Up. Thank you. You're welcome. Take care.