In achieving a great health status, it is important to eat a healthy diet. In this diet, you must incorporate lots and lots of nutritious foods, which should possess various essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. These are what will help you in achieving an optimal health. One of the most significant nutrients that a diet must have is biotin or the vitamin B7. Well, biotin is a water-soluble type of B vitamin, which is essential for the body in converting food into energy. In the actual fact, there are lots of health benefits of biotin, some of which will be discussed later in this article. If you want to know these and more, feel free to give this article a read.
Biotin or Vitamin B7: What is this?
As what we have said above, biotin or vitamin B7 is a water-soluble kind of B vitamins. Actually, it was once named the vitamin H and coenzyme R. Mainly, biotin is essential for the body’s conversion of food into energy. Not just that, it is also important for the nails, hair, and skin health.
Due to the fact that biotin is a water-soluble vitamin, the body does not store it. Well, even though some say that this is somewhat a useless vitamin, it actually has a lot of important functions in our body. As a matter of fact, it is important for the function of various enzymes, known as carboxylases. This particular enzyme that contains biotin actually participate in the significant metabolic pathways, just like the production of fatty acids and glucose.
Commonly, the recommendable intake of this B vitamin is 5 micrograms every day for infants and about 30 micrograms for adults. Nevertheless, it goes up to about 35 micrograms for the breastfeeding women. The lack of biotin or vitamin B7 in the diet may cause you some health conditions. It is important to include the suggested amount of this vitamin in the daily diet.
The lack of biotin or vitamin B7 deficiency is objectively rare. Nevertheless, some of the groups, like pregnant women –may experience it in milder forms. In the actual fact, eating raw eggs may cause a deficiency, yet you should eat lots of eggs for a longer period of time. The raw egg whites contain avidin, a kind of protein what helps in binding the biotin and help in preventing the absorption of it. Furthermore, avidin is not yet activated during the cooking.
Important Sources of Biotin
To be able to include a good amount of biotin in the diet, you need to consume foods like kidney, meat liver, milk, fish, and egg yolks. Furthermore, it is an important point to remember that, as what we have said earlier, the egg whites may restrict the absorption of this particular vitamin and must, therefore, be evaded in larger amounts. Moreover, the requirement of the intake of the vitamin varies from a person to another.
The recommendable diet from doctors should include foods for the extraction of biotin. There are some other sources of this particular vitamin too. This includes:
Health Benefits of Biotin
Here are some of the health benefits of biotin:
- Helps in controlling the blood sugar levels. It is a fact that biotin is beneficial in maintaining the proper level of blood sugar. This is certainly a great news for those who are suffering from diabetes. It is beneficial for the body in regulating insulin, thus reducing the risk of shifting blood sugar levels.
- Helps in optimizing health. The biotin is a synthesizer, which is important to various components. It plays an exceptional role in the maintenance of the optimal health for the body. For example, this particular vitamin is essential in the processing of the glucose in order to extract proper amounts of energy.
- Helps in protecting heart health. Biotin is necessary for the ensuring of the proper functioning of the heart. It actually helps in the reduction of the levels of cholesterol in the body. This may be a major cause of conditions like strokes, heart attacks, and atherosclerosis. This is one of the best health benefits of biotin.
- Aids in losing weight. The vitamin is essential in the reduction of extra fat from the body as well as the maintenance of a healthy weight. Those who are suffering from obesity are usually recommended by the doctors to include foods, which are rich in biotin.
- Aids in skin care. Biotin is an important component for the maintenance of the hair and skin health. Furthermore, it is also essential for keeping the nails in good shape. It is beneficial in revitalizing the reduced skin color because of bad health status and pollution.
- Helps in boosting the metabolism. The vitamin B7 or biotin is a catalyst for the controlling of some of the metabolic reactions, which provide energy from the process of metabolism of various essential nutrients.
