At the nail salon the other day, I started wondering about aging and our nails.  I have been pondering aging for a while now – noticing the emerging lines on my face, the change of skin and hair texture and the shifting of my body, but what about our nails?  What happens there?

Nails really are an important part of our body and one we should keep an eye on.  They can be a window into our health, conditions like liver and kidney disease, diabetes and even anemia can expose themselves in the nails.

One professor, William B. Bean, actually measured his nails everyday for 35 years, his findings:  each digit had it’s own pace, and his nails slowed their growth as he aged.  So they grow slower and change in thickness.  One reason seems to be our circulation starts to change in our extremities, which leads to color changes and the thickness of the nails.  Our nails can start to change shape too.  They can start to curl, discolor and/or become brittle. According to nails magazine:

As we age, our nail physiology actually changes as part of the nail growth plate (nail matrix) begins to thin. This phenomenon results in the development of vertical ridges along the nail. Compromised circulation or less efficient blood flow to our extremities can also contribute to nail ridging. These ridges are called onychorrhexis, a clinical sign of brittle nail 

We just seems to start drying out later in life, literally.  This leads to more dead skin around the nails and can lead to brittle nails. Although my nail technician of 20 years swears that ingrown nails occur at all times and are generally hereditary, ill-fitting shoes and improper trimming to contribute to this condition.  One thing seems true though – once you get one, you seem to be more prone to them.

This is also a time when all that hard work on your feet starts to catch up with you:  tennis, running, dance – all movements in which you put pressure on the front of your feet seem to create trauma that increase the likelihood of losing toenails later in life.

Color changes too.  You can go from discoloration to yellowish to a “napoleon” look:  a line of white, pink and yellowish.

What can we do as we age to take care of our nails?  Get regular manicures and pedicures.  Pedicures especially can be helpful.   That nice massage and tapping that your technician does can help with circulation and tension that might be in the calf and foot.  The pedicure can add moisture to your feet and sloughing the dead skin off can encourage new cells to grow.

If you don’t have a good technician – who is seriously like a good hair stylist – get one.  Always observe practices in a salon and make sure tools are sterilized (I once got a bad infection from a pumice stone rubbed up against my leg accidentally during a pedicure.  Imagine how embarrassed I was in the ER with seriously ill patrons only to disclose the source of my visit to be the puss that was emerging from my leg after a pedicure – oh and BTW, when I went back to the salon to complain, the lady said “oh yeah, those things are full of bacteria – we can’t sterilize them.”  – Nice to know.  They have since been “outlawed” in salons in Georgia.)

Midlife is the time to treat your feet right.  Treat your nails not just to a fill-in and gel polish, but also to enjoying the massage and keeping an eye on how they look, grow and feel.

We will talk more about the foot in another post – totally one of the most neglected parts of our body.

It’s all good.