TAKE a close look at your nails. Their colour, shape and condition could tell you a lot about the state of your health.
THEY get bitten, clipped, filed and painted on a regular basis but for all the attention they receive, do we really take much notice of what our nails can tell us about our bodies?
Most of us are only really concerned with the cosmetic appearance of our fingernails and we spend millions of pounds every year on nail varnish and similar products.
Yet when doctors inspect them during a consultation, it’s not to admire the shade of polish or the quality of the manicure. Nails can provide GPs with vital clues to what may be happening elsewhere in the body, pointing to everything from lung disease to anaemia.
Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, says nails can help doctors diagnose a wide range of conditions.
“My own psoriasis was picked up when I was a young GP and a partner in my practice noticed I had ‘pitted’ nails where the surface has lots of little dents. It’s a common sign of psoriasis but this was before I had any other symptoms.”
Nails are made up of layers of a protein called keratin. They grow outwards from the cuticle, the area at the base of the nail. As new cells grow, older cells become hard and compacted and are pushed out towards the tips of the fingers.
