emily asked
I have been taking a biotin supplement, and a multivitamin/multimineral for months now and just thought about whether or not those could have any effect on my birth control pill, Mibelas Fe 24? The Biotin I take is by Natrol.
At a glance
- Biotin has no known interactions with birth control pills (neither progestin only pills nor progestin/estrogen combination pills). Biotin, however, is associated with skewing the results on a variety of commonly ordered laboratory tests. Additionally, several drugs are known to decrease biotin levels in the body, including many anticonvulsants.
Answer
There has been a lot of news recently regarding the potential for biotin (vitamin B7) to cause problems with a variety of laboratory tests.[1]
In fact, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) issued a press release to warn patients, health care practitioners, and lab personnel that biotin has the ability to skew the results on commonly ordered tests, including:[2]
- Thyroid stimulating hormone
- Cortisol
- Beta-hCG
- Creatine Kinase
Fortunately, when it comes to drug interactions, biotin is thought to have very few.
It may slightly alter the activity of a liver metabolizing enzyme known as CYP1B1, but this isn't thought to be clinically significant in most situations.[3]
Most interactions concerning biotin are actually deleterious to biotin itself, not other drugs.
One well-known example is with Avidin, a protein found in raw egg whites. Excessive consumption of raw egg whites has been associated with biotin deficiency.[4]
When it comes to biotin interacting with birth control pills, nothing has even been documented or reported. It is thought that biotin supplementation is safe if you are taking birth control pills.
Biotin Interactions
As stated, biotin isn't thought to interact with many drugs (if any at all) and it has not been linked to having any effect on birth control pills, including mini-pills (progestin only) and combined hormone pills (those which contain both an estrogen and a progestin).
Some in vitro studies (studies that are done in a lab setting versus in vivo studies, which are done with living organisms) suggest that biotin can increase the activity of CYP1B1, a liver metabolizing enzyme. However, this doesn't appear to cause drug interactions as none have been reported via this mechanism (as it concerns biotin).
Most of the concern with biotin and its interactions with food or drugs is that they (both food and drugs) could possibly decrease biotin levels, potentially causing a deficiency.
All of the following have been reported to cause biotin deficiency:[5]
- Avidin (a protein in raw egg white)
- Carbamazepine (an anticonvulsant drug)
- Phenobarbital (an anticonvulsant drug)
- Phenytoin (an anticonvulsant drug)
- Mysoline (an anticonvulsant drug)
References
- ^ Biotin Fact Sheet for Health Professionals. PubMed
- ^ Biotin treatment causing erroneous immunoassay results: A word of caution for clinicians. PubMed
- ^ Biotin supplementation increases expression of the cytochrome P450 1B1 gene in Jurkat cells, increasing the occurrence of single-stranded DNA breaks. PubMed
- ^ The avidin-biotin complex (ABC) method and other avidin-biotin binding methods. PubMed
- ^ Impaired biotin status in anticonvulsant therapy. PubMed
