Thread: fingertips (skin) is cracking- diet lacking..?

Originally Posted by cpush

I've had this going on for a bit and my mom (disapproving of my habitually boring diet of oats tuna etc..) always says "That means your lacking something in your diet!" It's not like she knows anything but it made me consider it as a possibility.
I drinks LOTS of water (4+ liters a day) eat LOTS of vegetables, drink SOME milk.. I take a multivitamin.. the only thing I don't eat too much of is fruit.

Any ideas?

There are a few things it could be:

1. It could be nothing to do with nutrition! - Are your hands in water a lot? And, if so, do you use a moisturiser cream afterwards?

If you wash your hands a lot or if you are working with your hands in water a lot (eg: washing dishes) you are likely to just be drying your skin out (esp if you use warm water/hot water and you have detergents or chlorine in the water) then you can dry your skin out a lot and it can get dry and cracked.

If this is the case, you should try to wear gloves and then apply a goo moisturiser afterwards (it is not just for girls - blokes should do this too!!).


2. It could be related to diet - Things to think about are healthy fats, vit A, Magnesium, zinc and the B-vitamins... As you are eating lots of vegetables (esp if they are green vegetables) you probably do not need to worry about Vit A... B vitamins are usually in vegetables, milk and animal products and it is unlikely you would be deficient in these either (there are usually more serious signs than dry skin and you probably would have noticed these)...

But what about things like healthy fats? (fish oil/fatty fish, nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oils etc). Are you getting these? These are vital in maintaining healthy skin and are one of the more likely solutions.

But I would also urge you to eat 1-2 serves of fruit/day too.


3. Lastly - if you are getting really good nutrition and your hands are not always in water you might want to go and see a doc as it could indicate something more serious.

thanks emma. well I do usually take 2 showers a day, which I'm sure dries my hands out quite a bit. I get all of my fats- I take fishoil, eat natural peanut butter, and always decorate my salads with some olive oil. I'll use some more moisturizers and incorporate a few more fruits thanks again

This happend to me at the beggining of last school year. I only got about 2-3 little cuts in the skin on my fingers. I never figured out what caused it. How old are you cpush, maybe it has something to do with puberty.

im 20

I doubt it's diet related. Even if you aren't getting your hands wet all the time, you may just have naturally dry skin. My skin used to dry out horribly in the winter time to the point where it would crack. I used to use this stuff I called "cow cream" (There was a picture of a cow on it, and it was used for healing dried out udders) and it healed up my hands.

I haven't had the issue the last few years, so I apparently grew out of it or something. I honestly have no idea why it no longer happens. My hands still dry out, but not quite as badly. This was before I started really paying attention to my eating habits too, so it's not that.

Even so, I use moisturizer now. I am currently employed as a baggage handler at the airport. Between getting greasy shit on my hands that I'm sure is not good for natural oils in my skin and handling baggage that just sucks up the natural oils on my hands, my hands get pretty dried out.

It could also be Hand Eczema. They sell special moisturizers for this.