Most people have a small, whitish, half-moon shape at the base of each fingernail where the nail attaches to the cuticle and finger. Some people cannot see a half-moon, or lunula, on the nail while a missing half-moon may suggest a person has a vitamin deficiency or a serious medical condition.
Nails grow from a pocket under the skin that doctors call the matrix. The matrix helps make new cells. These cells then come together and push out of the skin. Lunula, the white half-moon shape on the nail’s root stands for ‘little moon’ and it can signal many different things. This part of the nail is white since the 5th basal Era layer is concealed under the blood cells.
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