Are you nourishing your hair, skin, and nails?
If not, maybe you should be. These parts of our bodies say a lot about our health — both to ourselves and to others! Far from being mere superficialities, the appearance of our hair, skin, and nails says a lot about what going on under the hood.
It’s for these reasons that we’ll be doing a three-part series completely dedicated to the topic. Part 3 (this article) will cover nails, while part 1 covered hair and part 2 covered skin health.
- Part 1: Hair
- Part 2: Skin
- Part 3: Nails
While just getting healthier in general will have a good effect on hair/skin/nails, we can get a little more specific than that. Certain nutrients are virtually tailor-made to improve your hair health. Keep reading to learn more about these nutrients — and their best sources.
- Nails and nutrient deficiencies?
- How to get stronger nails (naturally)
- Collagen for stronger nails
- The trifecta: healthy hair, skin, and nails
In this article you’ll learn how the nutrients provided for in organ meats can support strong, healthy nails.
Nails and nutrient deficiencies?
Did you know that the thickness and appearance of your nails tells a story about your overall health?
It’s true. Forget palm reading — nail reading can be a great way to determine your nutrient statuses: [1]
- Cracking nails indicate a deficiency in healthy fats
- Ridges along the nail bed indicates a B-vitamin deficiency
- Frequent hangnails can indicate deficiencies of folic acid or vitamin C
- Dry, brittle nails indicate a calcium deficiency or calcium deposition problem
How to get stronger nails (naturally)
The ideal nail is thick, strong, clear, and flexible. (Just look at a healthy child’s nails to get a mental picture for this.)
If your nails don’t check all the above boxes, then you have some room for improvement.
The good news is that having healthier, better-looking nails is simple. All you need to do is:
- Eat plenty of the above nutrients (they assist with nail growth and remodelling)
- Eat plenty of collagen (it’s a literal building block for your nails)
We’ll get to collagen in the next section — for now, let’s go over how to ensure you’re getting enough of the vital nutrients mentioned above!
Healthy fats
Nourish your nails and prevent cracking with healthy fats like tallow, ghee, butter, coconut oil, and olive oil. [2]
B vitamins
Prevent nail bed ridges and rough spots with the B vitamins found in beef liver, kidney, and spleen. [3]
Vitamin C
Prevent hangnails with the antioxidants found in beef liver, green leafy vegetables, and berries. [4]
Calcium
Avoid dry, brittle nails by getting plenty of calcium. Good calcium sources include bone meal, bone broth, and pastured dairy products. [5]
Collagen for stronger nails
As mentioned earlier, collagen is a literal building block for your nails. While eating plenty of the nutrients above will help your nails grow and develop properly, you’ll still need to ingest the stuff your nails are made of! Scientific analysis has shown that type I collagen is the primary protein found in nails. It’s essentially what’s holding everything together.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that dietary collagen has noticeable pro-nail effects. A 2017 study found that collagen supplementation increased nail growth by 12%…and decreased the frequency of broken nails by a whopping 42%. “The majority of [study] participants (80%) agreed that the use of collagen peptides improved their nails’ appearance, and were completely satisfied with the performance of the treatment,” noted the study’s authors. [6]
Just as impressively, collagen supplementation had lasting effects. Nearly 90% of study participants still noted improvements four weeks after ceasing supplementation.
The trifecta: healthy hair, skin, and nails
Well, that just about sums up this series! The appearance of your hair, skin, and nails provides a trifecta of visual cues as to the status of your inner health.
In this case, beauty is not just skin deep. Outward beauty is actually a sign of adequate nutrient status, healthy metabolism, low inflammation levels, and other beneficial health markers.
But don’t think that possessing healthy hair, skin, and nails has to be complicated. It can actually be very simple. By eating a diet high in nutrient-rich animal products and low in inflammatory frankenfoods, you can set yourself up for hair/skin/nail success.
And for those of you who want to really optimize things, consider supplementing with beef organs. These organs have been prized by our ancestors for thousands of years for a reason: they’re among the richest sources of appearance-boosting nutrients available.
