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Lunulas

Do you have lunulas on your fingernails?

  • I do not have lunulas.

    Votes: 14 14.1%
  • I have lunulas on my thumbs only.

    Votes: 67 67.7%
  • I do have lunulas on my fingers.

    Votes: 18 18.2%

  • Total voters
    99

cigana

Senior Member
Messages
1,095
Location
UK
A lunula is the white, crescent-shaped area of the fingernail (at the opposite end to the fingertip).
File:Thumbnail1.jpg
 

Boule de feu

Senior Member
Messages
1,118
Location
Ottawa, Canada
Thank you for this, Cigana.

I have read that depending on the time of the day and how you feel, your lunulas could be visible or not.
I guess we would have to check when we feel really awful.

I have a lunula on my left thumb only.
My right hand has two very small ones on two of my fingers and one on my thumb.
I don't know how to cast my vote.

Maybe we should add a choice : I am missing some of my lunulas?
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
Oops! I marked "do not have lunulas" when I should have marked "I have lunulas on thumbs only". Sorry. :(

FWIW, my daughter, also a PWC, has lunulas on thumbs only, too.

I don't know what it means, but it's kinda interesting to see if many of us have this peculiarity.
 

kday

Senior Member
Messages
369
Taking very high doses of B12 (25 mg or so) made my lunulae on my thumbs grow and become nice and white. They also made small lunulae appear on my index and middle finger, but they were nothing to brag about.

When my methylation cycle was restored, My lunulae stayed like this. Now that I need to take B12, etc every day for proper methylation as so I don't feel like complete crap, the lunulae on my index and middle finger have disappeared.

I have mentioned this numerous times in the B12/methylation part of the forum.
 

camas

Senior Member
Messages
702
Location
Oregon
I'm not sure how to vote, so will abstain for now. When this subject came up last month, I looked and found lunulae only on my thumbs, but now I see that I have small crescents developing on my first and middle fingers. I've been trying Rich's methylation protocol for a couple of months so, like kday, I'm thinking this might be related to B12 intake, etc. Would be interesting if everyone trying Rich's protocol would keep a lunulae diary and report back on their findings.
 

ixchelkali

Senior Member
Messages
1,107
Location
Long Beach, CA
Looking at the results so far, I can't help wondering, what's so special about thumbs? Why are the lalunae on the thumbs the last to go? (Not that it's important; it's just that I often wonder about life's little mysteries.)
 

cigana

Senior Member
Messages
1,095
Location
UK
Thing is, I have no idea what these statistics would look like for the normal (healthy) population. I just checked a colleague's hand and she only had them on her thumbs too (she's healthy)...
 
Messages
5,238
Location
Sofa, UK
Thanks for sorting out the poll cigana!

Most of these forum polls now seem to me a bit fruitless for various reasons, which is why we are developing solutions to dramatically improve the value of the data we can collect in this way. But this one, I think, is an exception...

After this first try it might be appropriate to explore some more detail perhaps, but cigana's highlighted issue seems more important: control comparisons. How might we find our own control data for this?

Perhaps something like: everybody participating in the poll could pick one random friend whose lunula status is unknown to them - somebody who is in good health (definition of that part needs some thought), check their lunulas, and report back? For my part, I'm making a mental note to check the lunulas of as many people as I can to try to get a feel for it.

Further expansion of the study could explore more detail of the length of the lunulas on all fingers because an earlier post suggested there are more detailed patterns also; those patterns could probably be confirmed quite quickly here.

I'd love to organise such a 'study' but unfortunately I have other fish to fry...so again I'll just invite a volunteer to take this up...it shouldn't be ever so much work for a small team...
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Thumbs only - but barely visible - probabley the largest so easier to spot if at all.
 

August59

Daughters High School Graduation
Messages
1,617
Location
Upstate SC, USA
Thumbs appear to be normal looking, but the lunala's on the other fingers are either very small, very faint or missing.
 

richvank

Senior Member
Messages
2,732
Hi, all.

It's kind of interesting to me to hear that the methylation status may be affecting the presence or absence of lunulas. I don't understand why for sure, but that has never stopped me from offering a hypothesis in the past! :)-) So here's one:

It's known that the nails are composed of proteins called keratins. The mechanical strength of the nails (and the hair, which is made from the same class of proteins) is due to crosslinking between the protein molecules by formation of cystine disulfide bonds between adjacent cysteine residues. When there is a methylation problem, it tends to affect the availability of cysteine, about half of which is usually made from methionine by the combination of the methylation cycle and the transsulfuration pathway. I suspect that when there is a deficiency of cysteine, the nails and hair are made of the types of keratin that don't contain as much cysteine as are usually used. The result is likely to be weaker nails and hair.

The lunulas are the visible part of the nail matrix, which is where the new nail material is being produced. O.K., here comes the hypothesis: Maybe a shortage of cysteine slows the production of new nail material and shrinks the nail matrix, so that it retreats back underneath the cuticle.

It is known that people who have kidney disease and have to be on dialysis tend to have fewer lunulas. Several studies have shown this. It is also known that the kidneys are normally one of the organ types that are able to convert methionine to cysteine, by virtue of the fact that the kidneys have a fully functioning transsulfuration pathway (as do the liver, the pancreas, the intestine, the lens of the eye, and to a much lesser extent, the brain). So I think that this fact might be consistent with the hypothesis offered above.

I would be interested to know if others who try the methylation-type treatments (Freddd's or the one I have suggested or some variation of these or the others out there now) also experience appearance of lunulas where they were absent before.

Best regards,

Rich
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
I've just done the poll but now I am wondering what it was for! I'm curious why you're interested in lunulas, cigana - did you have a particular reason for asking the question?
 
Messages
5,238
Location
Sofa, UK
Ooooh...keratin! So this is related to keratosis then? That peaked when I was sickest and is another good measure of my health.

What interests me most about this is the ease with which it could be a practical measure of progress with treatments. If people can monitor their lunulas and learn in real-time how well their treatment is progressing, that would be a much easier, cheaper and more effective strategy than blood tests...
 

camas

Senior Member
Messages
702
Location
Oregon
Thanks for the hypothesis, Rich. I've set a reminder to check mine once a month and will report back if I see any more changes.
 

cigana

Senior Member
Messages
1,095
Location
UK
I have keratosis pilaris which has become worse since getting ill, don't know if it's related but maybe worth mentioning.
 

cigana

Senior Member
Messages
1,095
Location
UK
I've just done the poll but now I am wondering what it was for! I'm curious why you're interested in lunulas, cigana - did you have a particular reason for asking the question?
Hi Sasha, it was mentioned on another post and Mark suggested someone start a poll, so I did - sorry can't remember which psot but you could find it by searching....
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
Hi Sasha, it was mentioned on another post and Mark suggested someone start a poll, so I did - sorry can't remember which psot but you could find it by searching....

Thanks, cigana - the lunula stuff begins on a thread about Dr Lapp's research, starting with this post. Overstressed thinks that the disappearance of lunulas could be due to cell apoptosis, there's a later reference to possible links to stress, someone has them returning when they've got their methylation cycle working, someone thinks it's also related to disappearing fingerprints, lots of theories... It would be good to know what the figures are for lunulas in healthy people.
 

justy

Donate Advocate Demonstrate
Messages
5,524
Location
U.K
Hi, i havent voted as i have strong lunulas on both thumbs and a couple of small ones on others, none at all on some, although this has improved as a few months ago only the thumbs where visible. I am taking supplements but not methylation ones specifically.
Whats weird is that my youngest daughter (8) has good ones, my son who is 10 and well has a couple barely visible and none on thumbs, my husband has very pronounced ones on all fingers and is one of the healthiest people i have ever met.
 
Messages
3
A few weeks ago I looked at my fingernails and there were no lunulas on the fingers, only on my thumbs.

I've been taking methylfolate and methylb12 for the past two weeks and I see two new lunulas forming on my right hand index and middle finger. Cool!

(no idea why the right hand only, one would imagine the nails would grow similarly)