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Why do nails keep growing?

When people die, can their hair and nails keep growing?

  • I think I've read this somewhere that your hair and nails keep growing after death. Is this true? Thanks for your answers.

  • Answer:

    no. Hair and fingernails aren't actually growing. Dead is dead. The only things growing after you're dead are worms, bacteria, and flowers. What is happening, however, is that the skin around the hair and fingernails will desiccate (i.e., lose water) and thereby shrink. When the skin shrinks, it retracts, making hair and fingernails look longer, as if they'd grown. Think of it this way: a fifty foot tree grows in ten feet of swamp water. The visible part of the tree is 40' tall. A few months later, a drought causes the water level to drop five feet. Now the visible part of the tree is 45' tall. Did the tree grow in a drought? No, but you can see why people would think it did. Hope that helps, and remember, don't try this at home!

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Yes .. and no. It's not that the hair and nails grow, it's that the skin and body shrink and contract, making the hair and nails extend further ... in a sense, growing, although they're technically not grown at all.

Jaded

Their hair and nails do not keep growing. What happens is that the surrounding tissues recess, and it makes it appear that the nails and hair have grown.

doublewidemama

It's not so much that your hair and nails are still growing, than it is your skin is shriveling up and decomposing. It's impossible for any part of your body to function, or grow after death. True, it may seem like their still growing, but it's really just dead flesh beggining to decompose, and shriveling up and away from the nails, hair, and everything else.

[we're all mad here]

It's a common urban legend that hair and fingernails keep growing after death. They may look like they are growing a little, if so it is actually the skin receding that causes the effect. Snopes.com is a great website to look to for debunking urban legends. The link to their page about this topic is below.

baximus_rex

No because there cells die out too.

♥Natasha♥

no

brina l

Naa.

It Co$t To Be Around The Bo$$

well technically there will be like a few milliseconds between when you are technically dead and when the nails and **** stops growing

Scottso

Its not that your nails and hair are growin...OH WAIT EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY SAID THAT A BILLION TIMES. Please people dont post just to post..If someone answered it dont put the same thing down sheesh!

chris r

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