Welcome to Ask a Derm, a sequence from SELF wherein board-certified dermatologists reply your urgent questions on pores and skin, hair, and nail well being. For the primary installment, we tapped Susan C. Taylor, MD, the Bernett L. Johnson Jr. Endowed Professor of Dermatology and the vice chair for range, fairness, and inclusion for the division of dermatology on the College of Pennsylvania’s Perelman College of Drugs. Her specialties embrace hair loss, beauty dermatology, hyperpigmentation, and pores and skin of shade. 

For those who’ve ever heard a buddy, coworker, podcast host, or member of Bachelor Nation swear a sure complement helped their hair develop, chances are high it contained biotin—a vitamin that performs a key position within the manufacturing of keratin, the protein that makes up your hair and nails. However is swallowing it in capsule, powder, or gummy type actually the key to longer, thicker hair? We requested Susan C. Taylor, MD, professor of dermatology and vice chair for range, fairness, and inclusion on the College of Pennsylvania’s Perelman College of Drugs, for her ideas.

“Round 50 million males and 30 million ladies in america have androgenetic alopecia, the scientific time period for male or feminine sample hair loss, so it’s no marvel everyone seems to be in search of an answer that’s so simple as taking a capsule,” Dr. Taylor tells SELF. Google “hair development dietary supplements” and also you’ll get greater than half a billion (yep, with a b) outcomes, a lot of which embrace suggestions for merchandise that tout biotin as a foremost ingredient. And it is sensible—in case your physique makes use of it to assist type and develop wholesome strands, the extra, the hairier, proper? However right here’s the factor: You most likely already get sufficient of it.

People principally get their fill of biotin from frequent meals like nuts, egg yolks, meat, fish, and candy potatoes, which is why a deficiency is uncommon, in response to Dr. Taylor. “The really useful every day quantity for adults is 30 micrograms, however a typical Western food plan accommodates greater than sufficient biotin—usually 35–70 micrograms per day,” she says. So except you’re not getting sufficient by way of meals—otherwise you have been born with biotinidase deficiency (BIOT), a situation that forestalls the physique from utilizing biotin—chances are high you’re not working low, she provides.