What's Your Nails Say About Your Health

Our fingernails and toenails can serve as windows on our physical will being. Little white spots, for instance, can result from a low-grade illness at the time the nail was emerging. These flecks are harmless. Other abnormalities can indicate recent drug treatment or surgery. Certain discolourations and deformities may signal a serious underlying disease. Consult our chart to find out what your nails may be trying to tell you.

Nail Condition	Possible causes
Yellow colour	Lung illness (tuberculosis, asthma), Fungal Infections.
Whitish colour	Chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis.
Pale colour	Anemia.
Bluish colour	Exposure to excess copper or silver, heart failure, chronic lung disorder.
Gray, blue or brown colour	Too much iron ( hemochromatosis).
Half and half nails (half normal colour, half white, horizontally)	Kidney Disease.
Horizontal white lines (Beau-reil lines)	Chemotherapy (nails grow slowly or stop growing briefly during treatment), drug reaction while the nail is forming, infections diseases, recent surgery.
Brittle, split	Dehydration.
Small, black, splinter-like areas under the nails (actually small hemorrhage)	Infection of heart valves (a symptom of bacterial endocarditis), lupus, trichinosis (an illness caused by eating certain infected, undercooked meats).
Extremely rounded (clubbed)	Congenital heart disease, lung cancer, other chronic heart or lung conditions, tuberculosis.