5 symptoms foot doctors say you should never ignore

If you want to take a step toward better health, see a foot doctor.

- BY ANGELA HAUPT

You might learn something about a totally different (and seemingly unrelated) part of your body. Sometimes, “your feet are the first place where you can see warning signs of things like diabetes or vascular disease or even skin cancer,” says Hira Mirza, a podiatrist at CLS Health in Houston. “If you look closely enough, it really is a window to the rest of your health.” We asked experts about the foot-related symptoms you should never ignore—and what some of these issues can reveal about your health.

1. Hair that stops growing on your toes

When Anne Sharkey examines patients' feet, she always checks the hair on their toes—prompting a quizzical reaction. “They're like, 'Why are you looking at my hair?' And I tell them, 'Because if it stops growing, we have a problem,'” says Sharkey, a podiatrist in Cedar Park, Texas. It could indicate vascular insufficiency, which means the body's veins aren't working properly, leading to poor blood flow back to the heart. “I tell my patients that skin is like grass,” she says. “Skin needs blood to grow, grass needs water to grow, and if we aren't getting enough blood down here, we're not going to grow hair.”