Why fingernails grow faster than toenails

Fingernails grow faster than toenails because they are more exposed to impact and receive more nutrients due to their proximity to the heart.

Fingernails can grow faster than toenails depending on gender, diet or genetics. Illustration: Flickr.

Fingernails actually grow two to three times faster than toenails, depending on age, gender, diet, individual genetics, and the season. While fingernails take about six months to replace themselves, growing from the root at a rate of 3 mm per month, toenails grow back in 12 to 18 months at just 1 mm per month.

According to USCcience, there are two possible reasons to explain why fingernails grow faster than toenails.

The first theory is that because the hands are closer to the heart than the feet, they have better blood circulation, receiving more oxygen and nutrients. Nutrients are transported to the nails through capillaries located just below the nail.

Meanwhile, according to the second hypothesis, this difference comes from "trauma" when the nails are almost constantly impacted by tapping, typing, bumping and many other actions. Minor trauma can stimulate nail growth, so right-handed people often have faster right-hand nails than left-hand ones and vice versa.

The main component of nails is keratin, which is also found in skin, hair, and horn. Nails have no living cells and grow from a special group of cells called the nail matrix, which is rich in blood vessels located under the nail bed. Nail growth depends largely on finger length (longer fingers have faster nail growth), nutrition (dieting and low protein intake will cause slow nail growth), age (people under 30 have faster nail growth), and season (nails grow fastest in the summer).

According to VnExpress