People have a morbid fascination with death and what happens to a human body once decomposition sets in. Certain old wives' tales assert that nails and hair continue to grow after a person dies. Erich Maria Remarque's novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" has been credited as starting the rumor that hair and nails grow after a person dies, in which the narrator's dead friend is described as growing hair "just like grass" and that his nails grow like "corkscrews." However, this is nothing but imagination, as hair and nails do not grow in dead people.
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Rachel C Vreeman, pediatrics research fellow, and Aaron E Carroll, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of pediatrics and a Regenstrief Institute-affiliated scientist at Indiana University School of Medicine conducted research into several medical myths. Their research concluded that not only is nail and hair growth after death an urban legend, but also a myth several licensed physicians believe to be true.
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Dehydration of the body after death and drying out may lead to retraction of the skin around the hair or nails. As the skin retracts, it creates an appearance of increased length in hair and nails. This phenomenon is an optical illusion, created by contrasting the shrunken soft tissues with the nails or hair follicles.
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The actual growth of hair and nails requires a complex hormonal regulation, which is impossible to sustain after a body starts decomposing. Additionally, the only part of the hair that's still alive immediately postmortum is the follicle, which has its own blood supply. One the blood supply is gone, there can be no further growth. This is true for nail growth as well, however postmortum growth is minimal, and the cells can live 2 to 3 days after death.
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