Harvard trained nutritionist advises stopping this vitamin supplement before blood tests; here's why

While social media can be a global stage for a lot of unexpected nuisances, it also provides a platform for information sharing between professionals and people about topics that need more attention than they are getting at the moment.

One such issue is a lack of knowledge about a vitamin supplement that can interfere with blood tests.Yes, in a video going viral on the internet Dr. Amy Shah, an MD & Nutrition Expert, trained at Cornell, Harvard, Einstein and Columbia shared the name of a vitamin that can hamper blood tests. Her video has received about 2K likes and 84 comments, with more and more people appreciating her putting the information out."I don’t know why we don’t talk about this enough.

It’s really a nuisance at best and dangerous at worse. I don’t think most people know this and it’s such a common supplement/ingredient in supplements," wrote Shah in the caption of the video."This is such a PSA especially for all of my girlfriends because you know what? Everyone that I know is taking a hair, skin and nail supplement and a lot of them, most of them have high doses of biotin and you have to know that biotin interferes with blood testing for heart attacks like with troponin levels, with thyroid testing, with reproductive hormone testing, with parathyroid testing," said the doctor in the video.

"So, imagine this, you're having chest pain, you go to the ER and they're like oh my god, you're having a heart attack because your troponin levels are elevated. But you failed to tell them that you've been taking high dose of biotin and that is the reason why the troponin was high," she explained further."So not only are we confused, we get excess blood testing, we might not diagnose it correctly. That's why I want you to know that if you are taking these things, definitely stop them before you get your blood testing about 72 hours, and if you end up in the hospital for whatever reason, let them know that you've been taking biotin."

Is this true?

The information shared by the doctor is mentioned in various notable sources. According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, many common blood tests employ a biotin-streptavidin reaction as a part of the test procedure. While the amount of dietary biotin intake is not expected to affect these tests, biotin supplementation at doses greater than 1 mg per day can cause either falsely low or falsely high test results.This is particularly dangerous for patients in emergency situations who are not aware that they are taking high doses of biotin or when the physician doesn't know that the patient is doing so.According to the National Institutes of Health, even a single 10 mg dose of biotin has interfered with thyroid function tests administered within 24 hours of taking the supplement. Additionally, according to the FDA a patient with a high intake of supplemental biotin died following a troponin test that gave a falsely low result because the test was subject to biotin interference.Thus, as Dr Shah advised if you are taking biotin supplements it is better to avoid them before blood tests and inform your physician about them.