Can Your Fingernails Predict How Long You’ll Live?
Claims that a doctor can look at your fingernails and predict your life expectancy are generally misleading. Fingernails can sometimes provide clues about health, but there is no single nail feature that can reliably tell you how long someone will live.
Certain nail changes can be associated with medical conditions. For example:
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Clubbing—an enlargement and rounding of the fingertips—can be associated with some lung, heart, gastrointestinal, or other diseases.
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Brittle or spoon-shaped nails can sometimes occur with nutritional deficiencies or other conditions.
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White or dark bands or spots can have many causes, ranging from harmless changes to conditions requiring evaluation.
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Changes in nail color or thickness may occur with infections, medications, trauma, or systemic disease.
However, these signs are not specific enough to predict an individual’s lifespan. Even when a nail change is associated with a particular disease, it doesn’t mean that everyone with that change has the same prognosis.
If you notice a new, persistent, unexplained change in a nail, particularly a dark streak, significant deformity, or changes affecting several nails, it is worth having it assessed rather than trying to interpret it as a prediction about longevity.
