I have always had nails that I can tell what time of year it is by how they look. I knew when it was fall/winter time because they would start to flake which pretty much drove me nuts! I noticed a change in them when I started changing a few things about my diet, mostly about things I started to take.

(What I wish my nails looked like)
They say you are what you eat, and when you don’t eat correctly your nails and hair will show it as well as your skin. Your nutritional intake is a key to maintaining healthy nails. Doctors can tell a lot about their patients’ overall health simply by checking their nails. Problems with the thyroid and being iron deficient can cause brittle or weak nails.

But no matter what causes nails that are weak or that don’t look their best, there are some steps you can take to get great looking, stronger nails. One of best known steps for stronger nails is to make sure that you’re getting the biotin you need in your diet.

<< (What my nails tend to look like most days. I did nothing to them before I took this photo.)

It seems that no matter what, Biotin is one of the number thing to help get your nails behaving again. Does it really work? I think it depends on a lot of things besides taking Biotin.

So why take Biotin? Doing a little research this is what I found out.

1-Biotin helps give you energy, helps your skin look great and helps regulate glucose. Biotin is a vitamin that’s part of the B-complex family of vitamins and the benefit of this vitamin is how it works to help fight against weak nails.

2-Biotin metabolizes the foods you eat so that your body can use the vitamins and minerals in the foods for whatever your body needs. There are a few different ways that you can get more biotin benefits for your body and one of those ways is by paying attention to the foods you eat and making sure that you consume foods rich in biotin.

Remember that as with many vitamins, when you prepare the food by cooking it, you do lose some of the mineral amount.
But foods like eggs, specifically the yolk, are very rich in biotin.

3-Not only that, but many people don’t know that eggs also have antioxidants – so they’re doubly good for you! Avoid raw eggs when trying to increase your biotin intake because raw eggs prevent your body from being able to utilize the very nutrient you’re trying to add.

4-Some meats are great sources to raise your biotin intake – including liver, pork and certain types of fish like tuna and salmon. Legumes also have high levels of biotin. Even sweet potatoes are a good food to eat. (Yes I just made one of those faces about liver, you can’t get me to eat that stuff!!)

I tend not to eat meat so I have been looking for something better to take or eat. So below are some ideas what can be eaten to help your nails.

5-Consuming some extra helpings of beans like soybeans and adding some alfalfa to your diet are all ways to get the beneficial boost of more biotin. Peanut butter and oatmeal are great sources of it, too.

6-Fruits are a good source of biotin and you can find biotin in fruits like avocado, cantaloupe, watermelon, peaches, bananas and more. Peanut butter is a food that’s rich in biotin. With the many foods that contain biotin, it will be easy to change your daily menus to make sure you’re increasing the amount of this essential mineral you need.

So what is the best answer overall? By eating better, your nails get better.

Your body’s nails are made of keratin and what biotin does to help the nails is to aid in the production of this necessary protein so that you end up with strong, healthy nails. If you’re eating plenty of foods rich in biotin, but would like some extra help for your nails, then consider using a supplement or multivitamin containing biotin.

But.. To date, there isn’t enough scientific evidence to rate the effectiveness of biotin in treatment of brittle nails, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). What do you think? Does it really work?

What do you do to help your nails? Leave a comment I would love to know!