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Nails in diabetes
Author(s) -
Hillson Rowan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
practical diabetes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.205
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 2047-2900
pISSN - 2047-2897
DOI - 10.1002/pdi.2124
Subject(s) - medicine , diabetes mellitus , endocrinology
230 PRACTICAL DIABETES VOL. 34 NO. 7 COPYRIGHT © 2017 JOHN WILEY & SONS We all have our hobbies. Dr William B Bean studied his fingernails for at least 35 years.1 A little unusual perhaps, but our nails have much to teach us. Nails are made of keratin and grow lifelong. The nail plates protect the nail bed. The nail matrix – the living tissue which produces the nails – is visible as the lunula, the white crescent at the base of the nail. Fingernails grow about 3mm/month or 0.1mm/day; toenails about 1mm/month. Keratin is a strong protein that forms an extensively folded mesh linked by very stable disulphide bonds. It is hard and resistant to injury. There are skin folds at both sides of the nail plate, and at the base where the fold extends into the dead skin cells of the cuticle.2