Nail Discoloration

You should consult a physician if you have found

• Swelling, bleeding or redness around your nails and change in nail shape

• that the thickness of your nail has changed

• Nail discoloration with white or dark streaks

• If the nails become brittle, broken or cracked

Yes, sometimes nails can exhibit signs of any chronic disease or lungs, liver, kidney problems. For example, if your nail turns rosy/yellow, bumps over nails, nail cracking, etc are a sign of some disease in the body. The blackish discoloration of nails can sometimes be the sign of cancer or of malignant melanoma.

Skin cancer symptoms are sometimes exhibited on nails as dark black/brown lines across a fingernail or discolored toenail as per the American Academy of Dermatology[AAD]. That is brown discoloration on nails can be a symptom of skin cancer.

If your nail starts showing any abnormal signs like cracking, breaking, discoloration, etc then these underlie any health issue. In most common cases, it can be due to fungal infection.

The ridges or lines on your nail can indicate a deficiency of protein, calcium, vitamin A or zinc.