All About Health

Horizontal ridges on nails or beau lines happen because of Zinc deficiency.

Horizontal ridges on nails or beau lines

This is a condition that was first described by a french physician dr joseph beau in the 1800s. These horizontal ridges represent a time when the nail growth was interrupted. so that could be because of an illness like with someone with a high fever, an injury, severe malnutrition or drugs like chemotherapy. Here’s an example of a woman who receives chemotherapy every three to four weeks. and because we know nails grow about one and a bit millimeters every month, you can tell exactly where she had chemotherapy with each of these beau lines. and bowlines made headline news this year because some patients developed it after having covet 19.

Half and half nails

Now these are pretty distinct looking nails with this pinkish brownish band at the tip of the nail and the rest of it looks pretty white. and it’s associated with chronic kidney disease about 20 to 50 percent of patients will have it. Now we don’t actually know the exact mechanism for why this happens. but something i find really interesting is when a patient has chronic kidney disease requiring dialysis where a machine filters the blood, the nails don’t get any better it still stays the same. but if they get a kidney transplant then the nails seem to improve. 

Read more about Curved Nails vs Clubbed Nails

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