Healthy nails, healthy life: what your nails are telling you

Following on from advice about how to cut your nails, we look at the health problems that your nails could be telling you about.

Photo: © Medical-on-Line / Alamy

Cutting your nails wrongly can have health implications, but there are other ways your nails can show how healthy you are.

In terms of cutting them, the University of Nottingham looked into what causes common conditions, such as ingrowing, spoon-shaped or pincer nails.

They found that it could be something as simple as the shape of trimming.

But there are numerous nail conditions which can be linked back to a medical condition.

Here are a few key ones: -

Deep, grooved lines
They may be a sign of an illness that started a few months ago, chemotherapy, a previous injury and/or previous exposure to extremely cold temperatures.
Fingernails curve inwards
This nail condition could point to having a reduced number of red blood cells due to a lack of iron in the body. Similarly curved inward fingernails could be connectioned to Raynaud’s disease, a common condition that affects the blood supply to the fingers and toes, causing them to turn white.
Nail clubbing
This can be a indicator of serious illiness. It is sometimes the result of low oxygen in the blood and could be a sign of various types of lung disease. Nail clubbing is also associated with inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular disease, liver disease and AIDS.
Dark stripes on nail
Dark stripes may sometimes be a form of skin cancer that affects the nail bed, called subungual melanoma.
Pitted nails
This could be a sign of eczema, arthritis or psoriasis.

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Pale or yellow nails
The most common causes of a yellow nail are fungal nail infections. These can be caused by regular use of nail varnish.
And finally, some ways to stop nail-biting
Take photographs of your bitten fingernails.
Choose one nail not to bite - as a starting point.
Apply nail varnish - colourless if you’re male.
Put a rubber band on your wrist - it’s a reminder not to bite.
Wear little white gloves.
Fit thimbles on your fingers.
Put sticky tape over your nails.
Visit the institute for onychophagia (nail-biting) in Holland