Shop

Hair Keratins, and the Biotin Cofactor Beside Them

The hair shaft is not a vague fibre. It is a ranked set of keratin proteins, and several of those proteins cause named diseases when mutated. Biotin does not replace a keratin gene. Biotin is the cofactor for enzymes that build and process the fats and amino acids a growing tissue uses. Folli-Activ includes biotin in a 10-in-1 oral formula because that cofactor role, and the hair-loss symptom of deficiency, are published. The keratin catalogue and the vitamin review are two papers. Neither paper tested Folli-Activ.

The catalogue of hair keratins

Schweizer, Langbein, Rogers, and Winter count 54 human keratins: 28 type I and 26 type II. Of the type I keratins, 17 are epithelial and 11 are hair keratins. Of the type II keratins, 20 are epithelial and 6 are hair keratins. Nine of the epithelial keratins are expressed specifically in the hair follicle, so the follicle-specific set reaches 26, close to the number used by the rest of the epithelia combined.

Disease mapping in that review is uneven, and the unevenness is informative. More than half of the ordinary epithelial keratins had, by 2007, been tied to an inherited disease, with type I and type II mutations both causal. Of the 26 hair-follicle-specific keratins, 5 had been tied to inherited hair disorders, and those five were type II. The diseases named from hair-keratin mutations include monilethrix and ectodermal dysplasia of hair and nail type. Monilethrix produces a beaded shaft. The gene lesion is in a hair keratin. When a hair keratin fails, the shaft fails in a recognizable way. The shaft is protein, not a coating.

Zahn's progress report on hair keratin research records the same Langbein catalogue from the laboratory side: nine type I hair keratins and six type II, with a two-dimensional map, and with cuticle cells leaving the living compartment already carrying four different hair keratins. The cortex and the cuticle do not use one generic keratin. They use a sequence of named ones. Kon and colleagues, as Zahn summarizes, also found a drop in intact microfibril keratin at the tip of permed hair, which is a chemical insult to an already built shaft. The catalogue and the perming observation both say the same structural thing: hair is keratin, and keratin can be lost or mutated.

Where biotin touches this story

Zempleni, Hassan, and Wijeratne describe biotin as the coenzyme on five carboxylases: acetyl-CoA carboxylase alpha and beta, propionyl-CoA carboxylase, 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase, and pyruvate carboxylase. Acetyl-CoA carboxylase feeds fatty acid synthesis. Pyruvate carboxylase feeds gluconeogenesis and refills the citric acid cycle. The other two process amino-acid carbon. Carboxylase activity drops when biotin is deficient. The adult adequate intake stated in that review is 30 micrograms a day. Hair loss is on the deficiency symptom list, together with dermatitis, seizures, acidosis, and organic aciduria.

Trüeb's clinic series puts a frequency next to the symptom. Among women who complained of hair loss, 38 percent had biotin deficiency on serum testing. He also recorded that indiscriminate biotin for every complainant, without a level and without excluding other causes, is the wrong practice. Patel, Swink, and Castelo-Soccio found 18 published cases of biotin used for hair or nail change, and every person in those cases had an underlying disorder of hair or nail growth. Improvement followed biotin in those cases. The pattern across the case literature is deficiency and specific shaft or nail disorders, not a blanket androgenetic alopecia trial.

Two layers in one capsule

A beaded shaft from monilethrix is a keratin-gene problem. Biotin will not rewrite that gene, and this page does not say it will. A person whose carboxylases are under-fueled because biotin is low is in the situation Zempleni describes, and hair loss is part of that situation. Folli-Activ's biotin is the cofactor ingredient in a formula that also contains saw palmetto, pumpkin seed oil, and nettle root for androgen-pathway literature, and EGCG, curcumin, and aloe for inflammatory and follicle-cell literature. Keratin structure explains why a metabolic cofactor is relevant to a shaft. It does not collapse the formula into a biotin-only product.

Philpott's culture work adds a third connection that is easy to miss. Inhibitory doses of interleukin-1 and tumour necrosis factor-alpha produced abnormal keratinization of the follicle bulb and inner root sheath. Inflammation can distort the keratin program of a living follicle. That is why the formula's anti-inflammatory ingredients and its biotin line are discussed in neighbouring essays rather than as substitutes for each other.

Packs

The bottle is 90 capsules, brand MY NPM FOLLI-ACTIV. On this site, 1 bottle is RM169, 3 bottles are RM447, and 6 bottles are RM699 with free shipping. Checkout is by card. Biotin is in it as vitamin B7. The keratin counts, the five enzymes, the 30 microgram intake figure, and the 38 percent clinic figure are the citations. They are not a claim that the Folli-Activ capsule was the treatment in Trüeb's clinic or in a monilethrix series.

Sources