Incidence of brittle nails.

Only few reports exist about the occurrence of brittle nails. We examined 1,584 persons with respect to the incidence of this anomaly. The patients were from five different groups: outpatients of a dental clinic, blood donors, residents of an old people's home, patients of a clinic for internal diseases and patients of a general practice. Approximately 20% of the subjects examined had brittle nails. Women suffered from brittleness of nails much more frequently than men (27 vs. 13%) with a ratio of men to women from 1:1.6 to 1:7 depending on age. 44% of the subjects affected (75% of the females, 25% of the males) had tried one or several treatments but only 26% believed in their curative effect. The market for the therapy of brittle nails in the FRG is estimated to be between 2 and 4 million people.