• Question: Hello, do nails grow faster than hair and why?

    Asked by to Anna, Iain, Nick on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Anna Middleton

      Anna Middleton answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      Hi isabellebieber
      I’ve just looked this up and it seems that hair grows faster than fingernails. Hair grows 150mm per year and fingernails grow 50mm per year.

      There will be different genes that control this and is due to the way we evolved.

      There are a lot of things in evolution that make no sense whatsoever and this seems to be one of them!

    • Photo: Iain Moal

      Iain Moal answered on 21 Mar 2014:

      Well, Anna looked it up and it seems that hair grows faster. As for why, this would be because hair and nails grow through different mechanisms and are made by different cells.

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