There was a medical conference held in San Diego California recently and a physician presented a case study about a woman who took a large amount of B vitamin called biotin. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, it’s the B vitamin that everyone takes to try to get thick hair and strong nails. Anyway, the 55 year old woman’s level of thyroid hormone spiked so high she experienced thyrotoxicosis (extremely high levels of thyroid hormone), yet she had no history of Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or thyroid disease of any sort.
The problem arose from the woman taking a high dose of biotin which she was using for multiple sclerosis (MS). They could not fully explain why the spike in thyroid levels had occurred, they think it might have something to do with assay interference, but regardless this case study poses an excellent warning to practitioners about the phenomenon. It’s not the first time biotin has come into the spotlight, there was a December 2012 article published in the scientific journal, Pathology which suggested a connection.