Your fingernails and toenails are made up of a hardened protein called keratin. This murky-colored nail material helps to protect the delicate skin on your fingertips and toes against damage.

What Is Nail Protein?

However, if you start to notice changes in the strength, appearance, color, or texture of your nails, this can be a sign mean that you are deficient in certain vitamins and minerals.

Nail Symptoms

For example, if you don’t have enough calcium or iron in your blood, your nails may become brittle and they can start to crack or split easily. Other signs that you may be deficient in certain nutrients include deep vertical ridges that form from the top of the nail to the base.

Club nails where the nail takes a larger, more boxy appearance. White spots or specks may begin to appear on the nail plate. The nails may spoon upwards, forming a little reservoir in the middle. You may have horizontal ridges if you’re deficient in B vitamins, or the skin beneath the nail may change color to all white, purple, or blue, just to name a few of these different problems. Many people try to heal or harden their nails using hardening gels or topical treatments.

However, to truly strengthen and restore the nails and make them look smooth, you need to have a healthy supply of blood to the nail matrix, a healthy balance of thyroid hormones, and the right amount of vitamins and minerals in your diet. For this reason, today we will explore the top six vitamins that strengthen the nails. By improving each of these areas, you will also learn about what may be causing your nails to change in appearance and some of the important lifestyle tips to follow to help you absorb more nail-strengthening minerals.

Bear in mind that I use the words vitamins broadly to include minerals, amino acids, and supplements that you can use to support the growth of strong, smooth, and healthy nails. Just a quick reminder this article is for educational purposes only, so do speak to your doctor if you have any medical concerns.

Vitamin B12 And Iron

The first item on my list is very important for the nails vitamin B12 and iron. One of the most common reasons people develop weaker, thinner, or brittle nails is because there’s not enough oxygen in their blood called anemia. Anemia can cause the nails to grow slowly or abnormally, which changes their shape as they grow and makes them weaker and more likely to crack.

The very best way to boost your vitamin B12 and your iron intake is by eating high-quality grass-fed beef three times per week. You can also get these nutrients by eating wild salmon, pasture-raised eggs, and shellfish.

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Please make sure that you avoid regular iron supplements which contain elemental iron, as this is poorly absorbed and can be toxic. To strengthen and oxygenate your blood, you need the type of iron that’s bound to a protein called heme-iron and this is found in animal-based foods.

You can also get this type of iron from grass-fed liver or spleen extract at a dosage of around 3000 milligrams per day. If you wish to take B12, the best supplemental form is called methylcobalamin or adenosylcobalamin at a dosage of around 1000 micrograms per day.

Nutritional Yeast (B-Vitamins)

Number two is one of the best supplements in the world. Nutritional Yeast one of the best ways to strengthen your nails is by eating two to three tablespoons of unfortified nutritional yeast every single day. This deactivated yeast has a very nutty, cheesy flavor, and you can sprinkle this over your salad, your vegetables, soups, stir-fries, or even eat it in yogurt. This is the richest natural source of B vitamins, such as B1, B9, and B7, etc.

B vitamins help to promote healthy cell growth and they help your body build protein-building amino acids that are needed to grow strong and healthy nails. And if that’s not enough for you, nutritional yeast also provides 18 amino acids. These are the raw materials and the building blocks needed to form keratin and new proteins in your body for the nails, the hair, the glands, and the outer layer of your skin.

Apple Cider Vinegar

Number three apple Cider vinegar. As you get older, the digestive juices in your stomach often become weaker, which causes you to absorb fewer minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, which are all needed for strong and healthy nails. So start drinking one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar mixed in a glass of water before each meal with a straw.

This helps your digestive system to break down proteins and minerals from your food and absorb them much better. This will help to support the cells at the root of the nail so that the nails can grow strong, smooth, and evenly. Alternatively, you can mix this vinegar with a little extra virgin olive oil to make a healthy salad dressing. Or you can take two to three capsules of powdered apple cider vinegar in the form of a supplement.

Bone Broth Powder

Number four is bone broth powder. If you wish, you can consume one to two tablespoons of bone broth powder on a daily basis to help supply the raw materials needed to build collagen and keratin for your nails, your skin, and your hair. This is a bland, tasteless powder that can be mixed in a cup of warm water and added to soups, stews, drinks, or any of your cooked meals.

It’s made from boiled animal bones and is rich in amino acids that build both collagen and keratin in the body for shinier, healthier nails, smoother skin, and strong hair strands, make sure to choose a brand that contains organic grass-fed chicken or beef bones for the best effects as these will contain more nutrients.

Calcium And Vitamin D

And now on to number five, which is calcium and vitamin D. As you may know, calcium is one of the most important minerals when it comes to strengthening the nail plate and preventing them from splitting, cracking, or ingrowing.

Most people get enough calcium in their diets by eating fruits, vegetables, milk, and dairy products. However, often it isn’t absorbed very well because of a lack of vitamin D. If you wish, you can take 10000 international units of vitamin D3, on a daily basis to help your body absorb calcium better by a factor of 20 times from your food, and this will support the structural integrity of your nails. I also recommend taking 100 micrograms of vitamin K2, as this will help to drive calcium into the bones and the nail structure where it belongs, just like the iron I mentioned earlier.

I advise that you avoid supplements that contain elemental calcium, which is calcium carbonate as this is definitely the wrong form of calcium that can stick to your artery walls and cause heart problems over time. If you do decide to take a calcium supplement, use either calcium citrate or calcium lactate using these dosages. But it’s easier to just get the calcium from your food from sardines, parmesan cheese, nuts, leafy greens, and kefir.

Trace Minerals

And finally, don’t discount the importance of number six, which is trace minerals. Trace minerals are minerals that your body uses in very, very tiny amounts, but they have many essential roles.

For example, you need iodine and selenium to support the thyroid gland in your neck. This produces hormones that control how your nails grow. You also need zinc, chromium, and silica to support the hormones that trigger the growth and keratinization of nail tissue. Unfortunately, many of the soils that we grow our food in have now been depleted of these minerals due to the use of pesticides and herbicides which binds to them. However, we can put these minerals back into our bodies by using liquid trace mineral drops of around 20 drops per day in a glass of water or by simply eating seafood and sea vegetables.

I recommend sea kelp, nori, kombu, mussels, clams, shrimp, and Irish moss. I also recommend eating one Brazil nut each day to load up on selenium. You see, selenium in particular helps your body to produce the active thyroid hormone T3, which helps to prevent your nails from changing color, detaching from the nail bed, forming ridges, or changing shape. Try to get as many of the nutrients that I’ve talked about in this article by eating them from whole Foods, and then use supplements when you need to.

Causes Of Nail Problems

Now that you’ve learned all about these vitamins and minerals, let’s take a deeper look at why your nails may be cracking, or changing color or shape in the first place. Firstly, you may have a nutritional deficiency in vitamins and minerals that you simply aren’t eating in your diet. Another cause is having digestive problems where you aren’t absorbing proteins, iron, and other minerals, which is weakening the blood flow to the nail. Or you may be taking antacids, which block you from absorbing these nutrients.

You may have nerve damage from physically injuring the nail bed or biting the nails too hard, or perhaps wearing tight shoes. You could have high levels of a stress hormone called cortisol, which causes nerve damage and defects. How the nails grow may have thyroid problems, which cause changes to the nails and the skin cells around the nails.

How To Strengthen Nails

Or another cause is simply not having enough oxygen in your blood due to poor circulation. Now that you know all this, let’s take a look at six lifestyle tips that you can follow to help strengthen your nails.

• Eat a mixture of shellfish soaked in apple cider vinegar twice per week, such as clams, shrimp, mussels, oysters, and crab meat. These shellfish are loaded with vitamin B12 and iron, the two key nutrients that support your red blood cells in transporting oxygen and nutrients to your nail bed.

• Cut back on sugary and grain-based foods like sugar, bread, cereals, pastries, biscuits, and ETCA. Grains and flour can deplete your minerals and B vitamins, which causes the nails to grow abnormally.

• Eat high-quality grass-fed beef, liver, red meats, pasteurized, eggs, and wild salmon. These protein-rich foods are rich in retinol the active form of vitamin A, which supports keratinization and the building of new, stronger nail cells.

• Stay hydrated by drinking at least one liter of water each day, preferably mineral water. Perform some light exercise, like walking for 45 minutes a day to improve blood circulation. These two tips help to oxygenate your blood to transport nutrients needed in nail biosynthesis.

• Consume one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water before each meal. This helps your stomach to break down and digest vitamins and minerals that we’ve discussed in this article. This is more important the older you get, as we tend to absorb fewer nutrients as we age, especially if you take antacids.

• Support your thyroid gland in activating, a hormone needed for healthy nail growth. Do this by eating sea vegetables rich in iodine like sea kelp, nori, dulce, Irish moss, or kombu. And consider eating one Brazil nut per day to load up on selenium.

Thank you so much again for reading my article today. And as always, I wish you excellent health, wealth, and happiness.