16 Things Your Nails Can Say About Your Health

1. Spoon nails (or koilonychia), a phenomenon when your nails look like a spoon with raised ridges and a scooped out depression, may be a sign of hemochromatosis, a disorder that occurs when your body produces too much iron. They’re also associated with iron-deficiency anemia, heart disease, and poor blood circulation.
2. Nail clubbing appears when your fingertips become enlarged and your nails become curved downward. This kind of nail growth can be a sign of low oxygen in your blood that is usually caused by lung disease. Clubbing can also be related to liver or kidney disease, heart problems, inflammatory bowel disease, and AIDS.
3. Nails that are detached from their beds usually indicate hyperthyroidism, a condition when your thyroid gland is releasing too many hormones into your body. Loose nails can also signify a fungal infection, psoriasis, poor blood circulation or amyloidosis, or an excess amount of the protein amyloid in your organs and tissues.

Other nail features

1. Dark verticle lines extending from the cuticle to the tip of your nail may be a sign of subungual melanoma, a really dangerous type of skin cancer. So even if those lines don’t cause any pain in your nails, it’s better to make an immediate trip to your doctor once you’ve noticed them.
2. Although most people believe that white stripes (or Mees’ lines) mean calcium deficiency, that’s not actually true. Those white discolorations on your nails usually indicate an imbalanced diet lacking in protein. Besides that, they may appear after an episode of poisoning with heavy metals as a result of kidney failure.
3. Red, puffy skin around your nail usually indicates inflammation of the nail fold. If the inflammation is accompanied by large swelling, this could be due to an infection called paronychia. Other possible reasons for the reddish nail fold include connective tissue disorders — lupus disease, in particular.