Cuticles

Medical Topic of the Day:  Cuticles is starting my series of unloved parts of your body.  Parts that you don;t care about and constantly neglect.

Off the Top of My Head:  The cuticle is that little part on your fingernail that is in a crescent near the end.  A lot of women and nail salons cut them off but typically your body does not have extra parts.  So what does the cuticle do?

My Research Today:  In humans the cuticle is called the eponychium which means "little claw" in Greek.  It is the small partial crescent of thickened skin surrounding the base of your fingernails and toenails.  This thickened skin covers a layer of membrane known as the pterygium.

Not pictured: the thing I was talking about.

The pterygium does something very important.  It protects you from the introduction of harmful bacteria where your skin and nail meet.  Cutting or removing the cuticle removes the protective layer over the pyterygium which increases your chances for a bacterial or fungal infection of your nail bed. Cuticles also protect new nail cells that push up and harden over time creating pretty new nails.

They could look like this.

Repeated abuse and destruction of this tissue for the sake of beauty can create chronic infections which lead to warped or uneven nails. You should be kind to that little tissue layer, it does a lot for you and all you ever do is hate on it. Treating your cuticles well will make your nails more beautiful and easier to maintain.

Well, I am done for the night. Type at you later.

Quest To 180:
10K steps today.  I guess that is good.  I wish it would stop raining.


The MAN:
I don't even know.