It may not spring in your mind often, however, fingernails are very important for your health and there is a big connection between your fingernails and diseases. Actually, fingernails can give significant warnings and signal the presence of a lot of diseases.
What you can do is look carefully at your nails and inspect the curves, dips, ridges and grooves. Also, inspect how thick or thin they are, or if they are broken or chipped. Check them in color too, together with the skin surrounding it and the skin underneath. They can all tell you different things. If you want to know more, keep reading.
Fingernails Warning Signs
1. Clubbed Nails
Clubbed nails are those which are puffed around the fingers. Also, the skin around the nail might seem swollen. These can indicate:
- Liver Disease
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- AIDS
- Lung disease, especially if you already have trouble breathing
2. Dry, Brittle Nails
Usually, brittle nails are connected with bacterial infections and hormone imbalance. Also:
- Thyroid disease can lead to brittle and dry fingernails.
- Fungus too makes nails dry or even crumbly, which affects 12% of all Americans.
3. Ridges
Healthy nails should have smooth surfaces with invisible lines. Ridge lines can be a warning of conditions like:
- Lupus
- Iron Deficiency
- Inflammatory Arthritis
Instead of buffing away the ridges, look for the underlying cause.
4. Pitted Nails
If you have small dips in the nails it might mean that you have caused them by banging them or you have a health problem like:
- Zinc deficiency
- Alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss
- Connective tissue disorder
- Psiorasis
5. Concave (Spoon Nails)
Nails like these curve up and form a dip. They can also indicate a lot of issues, like:
- Hypothyroidism
- Heart Disease
- Hemachromatosis, a liver disorder where your body absorbs too much iron
- Iron deficiency
6. Split Nails
These types of nails usually flake away in later. However, a lot of people blame this on the nail polish, when it actually might be:
- Caused by chronic malnutrition
- If they are split and have a pitted nail bed (base) it can indicate psoriasis, which starts in nails 10% of the time.
- They can stem from folic acid, vitamin C and protein deficiencies.
7. Thick Nails
Having thick nails is not normal. Nails have to be strong. If not, they can indicate:
- Lung disease
- Circulation problems
- Fungal infection
- Thyroid problems
- Psoriasis
8. Discolored Nails
If your fingernails are healthy they will be pink with a touch of white moons near the base. If they are with other colors, it might meant that you have health problems.
- Dark stripes at the top means that you are aging or you have congestive heart failure.
- White nails indicate liver disease like hepatitis.
- Dull nails indicate a vitamin deficiency.
- Blueish nails are a sign of low oxygen levels in the blood.
- Red streaks in the nail bed indicate a heart valve infection.
- Green nails indicate bacterial infection.
These are the 8 ways which will help you find out if you have a health condition just by looking at the nails. Therefore, do not take your nails for granted and watch out for them, they will help you a lot!
