Your nails might not be the first place you look to for signs that you’re killing it at this life thing, but surprisingly, you can tell a lot about your health from your nails.
What do healthy nails look like, though? First, “normal” fingernails should have white tips with a smooth finish and subtle shine, Dana Stern, M.D., assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical School, tells SELF. Your nail beds should be flesh-colored, meaning they skew pink, tan, or brownish. “Cuticles are intact and well moisturized,” Dr. Stern adds. “Hangnails are absent.”
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If your nail color, shape, or structure starts to look a bit odd for reasons beyond normal wear—say, you spent all weekend deep cleaning the house or you’re really due for a manicure—then it’s possible your fingernail health may indicate a deeper issue with your overall health, Dr. Stern says. Here are the most common nail problems that potentially signal something that’s more than skin-deep, according to dermatologists.
Small dents on the surface of your nail bed are called pitting, and when they show up with no apparent pattern or reason, this could indicate an autoimmune disorder, conditions in which the body mistakenly starts attacking healthy cells, leading to inflammation.
For example, pitting is typically connected to psoriasis (a skin condition that causes scaly patches to appear on the skin) and psoriatic arthritis (a type of arthritis that commonly affects people with psoriasis). But the phenomenon can also be related to connective tissue disorders like Reiter’s syndrome (a type of arthritis triggered by an infection elsewhere in the body). When pitting shows a regular pattern, it can be a sign of alopecia areata, a type of hair loss caused by an autoimmune response, according to the Mayo Clinic.
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If what you’re noticing isn’t quite pitting but is instead deep lines or grooves in your nails, you might be dealing with a phenomenon known as Beau lines. Some lines on your nail can be normal, but Beau lines are noticeably deep and run width-wise on the nail, not vertically. These can appear after really intense stress to your nail makes it stop growing (or grow more slowly than usual) for some time, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD). Causes of this can include high fever, which is why there’s been concern about “COVID nails,” or what some experts think may be Beau lines manifesting after COVID-19 infection.
This is called koilonychia, and it can be a completely normal age-related change to your nails, Dr. Stern says. But it may also indicate iron-deficiency anemia or other disorders in which iron is not metabolized correctly, like hemochromatosis and Plummer-Vinson Syndrome, which happens after long-term, chronic iron-deficiency anemia.1 If your doctor determines you have low iron levels via a blood test, treatment can usually help with the appearance of your nails. “Anyone who suddenly develops spoon-shaped nails should have a workup by their physician,” Dr. Stern says.
When the part of the nail closest to the cuticle is solid white and the distal part (the farthest section that’s still attached to the nail bed) is pink, this is called half-and-half nails, which Dr. Stern says is also called Lindsay’s nails.
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