[Question #9769] Has 0.4mg (400mcg) of BIOTIN given me FALSE HIV 1 and 2 Ab/p24 Ag test results?
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29 months ago
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Hello, Doctor. I hope that I am speaking with a 100% REAL doctor (M.D. or D.O.) with actual credentials and not a nurse or nurse practitioner. I will be very honest and straightforward. I have an absolutely crippling fear of HIV. I am a 28 year old straight male who has never done drugs and has only had sex with women. I have since abstained from having sex due to the fears and anxiety. I was tested for HIV using the commonly used lab test labeled "HIV 1 and 2 Antibody and HIV 1 -p24 Antigen" on January 30th, 2023, approximately 144 days from my last sexual encounter with a female nurse. The tests are performed by "LabCorp". I have been tested 4 different times in the last 3 years, all of which have came back NON-REACTIVE. This last test as well came back NON-REACTIVE.
Now, here's my worry. I take vitamins and one of which is a Vitamin B-Complex which contains 400 mcg (0.4 mg) of BIOTIN inside of it. I have read studies that show that BIOTIN can interfere with HIV blood tests and throw out a FALSE-NEGATIVE. I have taken a Vitamin B-Complex supplement for over 2 years, on and off. The supplement I typically take has only 300 mcg (0.3 mg), but for a week leading up to my latest test, I had a new supplement that contained 400 mcg (0.4 mg). I discontinued the use of this supplement for over 30 hours before getting my blood drawn from my arm. In your expert opinion, is this just my anxiety playing tricks on me to think that my blood test results were inaccurate? Are these HIV tests really THAT sensitive to such low amounts of BIOTIN? I have linked the study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703309/
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
29 months ago
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Welcome to the Forum. Thanks for your question. I hope my comments will be helpful to you. I suspect that you think HIV is both more common and harder to acquire than it actually is. By way of background, remember that HIV is present in substantially less than 1% of women in North American and that most of those persons have acquired their infections due to injection drug use or multiple exposures to an infected partner. Further, exposure to an untreated infected partner leads to transmission less than once in 1000 exposures on average.
In answer to your specific questions however, indeed high doses of biotin can sometimes interfere with detection of HIV, particularly p24 antigen in current tests. The doses of biotin you report taking (0.3-0.4) however rarely if even interfere with current tests. Further, discontinuation of your supplements for 30 hours before testing as you have done would result in biotin blood levels too low to interfere with tests. I can assure you that your tests are accurate and should be believed. EWH
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29 months ago
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Thank you for your timely and detailed response, doctor. So, in your opinion, 0.3 - 0.4mg (300-400mcg) of BIOTIN is considered a "low dose" and would not have an effect on this specific HIV test? Just clarifying.
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
29 months ago
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Correct, again, particularly if your test was taken 30 hours after your last vitamin dose since your blood levels at that time would be less than 1/4th the peak drug level after taking the vitamin.
Please don't worry. EWH
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29 months ago
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Okay, Doctor. Thank you again!
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29 months ago
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Also, is there any history of someone contracting HIV from food? Like if an HIV+ person bled on your food while preparing/cooking food and you had some wisdom teeth coming in and were bleeding a little bit, then chewed and ate the food. I know I sound crazy. I’m just really scared of this stuff.
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
29 months ago
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Final Response:
Ingestion of food contaminated with HIV has never been shown to result in infection. I would not worry at all about the scenario you describe.
Time for us both to move forward. Take care. EWH
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