Wellness Wednesday: Vitamin B7

​Today I’m spotlighting Vitamin B7. 

On my Facebook page this week we are talking about walnuts, a tree nut that provides a good dose of your daily Vitamin B7. It’s one of my favourite nuts to toast and use in baking and cooking. 

Toasting walnuts brings out the most amazing flavour, and adding them to your next salad (if you add dried fruit and nuts to your salad!) will definitely not disappoint you. I’ll be sharing the recipe I created for a Moroccan-inspired pizza on #testkitchentuesday that uses walnuts as one of the pizza toppings on #foodiefriday. I can’t wait to hear how you like it! Please feel free to comment on my recipes and let me know what you think.

Vitamin B7 plays a role in the metabolizing of fats and carbohydrates in your diet. It’s also instrumental in helping us keep healthy hair and nails, and that is why it’s sometimes called Vitamin H (for hair).  It’s important in the proper development of the fetus- in fact, babies, pregnant, and breastfeeding women are likely to have a biotin deficiency- for infants, cradle cap is one of the signs. There is some evidence from a study done in 1990 that suggests it may help with peripheral neuropathy in people with diabetes, but I haven’t seen more recent research.

You can get Vitamin B7 from some food sources, though not as many as the other B-vitamins. In spite of this, supplements are not usually required. A deficiency of Vitamin B7 will look like brittle hair and nails, skin problems such as dermatitis, dry eyes, fatigue, lips cracked in the corners, and anemia. Remember, before you take a supplement- because it’s easy to ingest too much of anything when you pop a pill, or cause side effects or drug interactions, talk to your doctor.

To summarize, Vitamin B7 is important to:

• Metabolize fats and carbohydrates. 
• Essential for fetal health.
• Keeps your skin, eyes, hair, and nails healthy.

You can find Vitamin B7 in these food sources:
Bananas, whole grains, legumes, nuts,  and seeds. Raw cauliflower, yeast, avocado, cooked eggs (raw egg white will inhibit biotin absorption), liver, salmon, and sardines.

Children from birth to 18 years need from need from 5-25 mcg per day, depending on age. Adults aged 19 and up need 30 mcg per day. Breastfeeding women need 35 mcg.

For general information on Vitamin B7, please check here.

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