What, if anything, can your nails tell you about the body that owns them? Example: disease, cardiac conditions, blood pressure etc. Thanks. Any help will be appreciated.
IIRC you can tell if there has been poisoning by arsenic by looking at a corpse’s nails (or at lest the nail bed).
I am not a real doctor. That said:
Nails and nail beds can give clues to many diseases and conditions including psoriasis, blood oxygenation levels, drug use (many classes of drugs, including chemotheraputics, can cause changes in the nails or mail beds), hypothyroidism, and vitamin/mineral deficiency. I’m sure I have not named them all, perhaps a real doctor will be along shortly to expound.
They probably have enough DNA to provide evidence in a crime, since they are similar to hair.
(Golly no, Mr. DA Person, I done never cut my toenails over the corpse, that I kin recall.)
This is just off the top of my head. Been a while since I studied nails.
Nails or the nail fold can be infected; called felon or paronychia, depending on the part.
Nails can be spoon-shaped. If they can hold a drop of water, this “kolionychia” is found in 5% of people with iron deficiency anemia.
Nails can be blue due to oxygen deficiency, methemoglobin or sulfhydryl poisoning.
Nails can be completely white, genetically.
Nails can have white bands in arsenic poisoning. Slightly different white bands can be seen in lung disease or renal failure, plus various others.
Nails with light and dark parts reversed can indicate liver failure.
Nails with pits are diagnostic of psoriasis.
Irregular separation of the nail and bed may indicate hyperthyroidism or fungal infection.
Nails are good for measuring peripheral blood flow. If you push hard on your nail and let go, it should turn red within two seconds if you have “good capillary refill”.
Nails can be used to diagnose wide pulse pressure, seen with aortic valve pathology. This is a sort of capillary refill pattern a little hard to describe unless you’ve seen it.
Nails can have splinter hemorrhages seen in bacterial endocarditis infections.
Finally, nails can be clubbed. This implies a loss of the angle normally seen between the finger and the nail. If fingers are bent and two nails on different hands are held parallel, they should form a diamond shape. This 20 degree angle is lost (for unknown reasons) in many pulmonary diseases, inflammatory bowel and a host of other specific diseases. Weird.
Nails can also be bitten. Draw your own conclusions.