# when people eat fingernails **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2001, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713 "2001-01-18T17:08:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beckwall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@beckwall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beckwall)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/1 "2001-01-18T17:08:07Z")
I don’t need to know the name for craving/ingesting unusual things. I do need to know the name of the “thing” that forms in the stomach, or elsewhere in GI tract, when a person eats his own fingernails and/or hair. Over time these things can collect and form a sizable mass, I am just looking for the medical term. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/2 "2001-01-18T17:49:01Z")
I believe the word you are groping for is “bezoar”, which sort of a human furball. ---
**Author:** ![Stella\_Fantasia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@Stella\_Fantasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stella_Fantasia)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/3 "2001-01-18T17:52:35Z")
I believe the word you’re looking for **bezoar** … ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/4 "2001-01-18T18:07:34Z")
Are there any side effects to having a bezoar? Can it be dangerous? PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/5 "2001-01-18T18:18:27Z")
From a 1987 issue of Science News > [@](#): > > Bezoars, or stomach stones, are clumps of fruit and vegetable matter, drugs, hair, carpet fibers or other substances that can accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract. > Animal bezoars were once treasured for their supposed medicinal properties, and it is said that a gold-framed specimen was included in the 1622 inventory of Queen Elizabeth I’s crown jewels. > > While modern society has dropped the bezoar fad, it has contributed to the phenomenon in a unique way. Surgeons at the University of Missouri in Kansas City recently removed a 7-centimeter-long, tan, egg-shaped bezoar from the stomach of a 35-year-old man who admitted to nibbling and swallowing pieces of polystyrene (Styrofoam) cups. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/6 "2001-01-18T18:53:25Z")
The Master has done a column on Bezoars before, although I don’t believe he goes into the details as far as medical prognosis. [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5\_104.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_104.html) I imagine hairballs in humans work like they do in animals. It makes it near-impossible to digest food properly when they get too big. So eventually, it has to be taken out, or you die. -Ashley ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/7 "2001-01-18T19:02:05Z")
[Cecil on bezoars](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_104.html), and a [followup](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/950811.html). Also relevant is [Is it crazy to eat clay?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_090.html), about folks eating odd things. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/8 "2001-01-18T21:27:11Z")
[http://www.darwinawards.com](http://www.darwinawards.com) had this to say about bezoars: > [@](#): > > - Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow \* > > 1999 Darwin Awards Nominee > \*\* Confirmed True by Darwin \*\* > > (January 1999, England) Some people with nervous habits have good reason to be anxious. In January, a British teenager was rushed to hospital complaining of severe stomach pains. Surgeons who operated in a desperate - but unsuccessful - attempt to save her life were amazed to find a tangled mass of human hair the size of a football lodged in her abdomen. > > Rachel, a 17-year-old hairdresser trainee, had been in the habit of chewing the ends of her tresses since early childhood. Specialist registrar Dr Andrew Stearman, of Poole General Hospital, Dorset, said: “The biochemical composition of hair makes it impossible for digestive juices in the stomach to break it down. It therefore accumulates, much like it builds up in the plughole of a bath or shower, attracting more hair and other food.” > > Recording a verdict of accidental death, Hastings coroner Alan Craze said: “This was something Rachel was doing from time to time by habit. She would have had the impression, if she had thought about it at all, that it was passing through her system. Unfortunately, it was not, and built to a massive size.” > > (…) > > Pathologist Nera Patel later measured the hairball - known as a trichobezoar - at 1 foot long, 10 inches wide and 4 inches thick. She said: “It was closely compacted and intertwined in the shape of a football. No one in our medical team had seen anything like it.” > > Rachel’s mother Norma, who was shown a picture of the fatal obstruction, simply said: “It looked like a dead rat.” ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/9 "2001-01-18T22:18:25Z")
So can you bezoars form from eating your fingernails or not? ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/10 "2001-01-18T22:34:04Z")
Lissa, that is just about the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. Thanks so much! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2001, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-people-eat-fingernails/50713/11 "2001-01-19T01:27:29Z")
Bezoarsd can cause bowel obstruction, with symptoms of vomiting, pain, distension and obstipation (don’t pass gas or stool). These can be lethal if untreated. Have never heard of a nail bezoar but could be possible if you ate an awful lot of them quickly. Hair is a lot more commonplace.