is it true that your hair and nails still grow after you die?

Question

if this is true how long does this growing last?

Answer 1

no i think its your skin receding

Answer 2

I have to laugh at all the ones who try to give you scientific reasons for answering "yes." Especially the protien one.

New tissue growth requires blood flow. Protein cannot get to the tissue unless it is delivered by blood. Blood flow stops when the heart stops.

Now, there is the little detail on what point do you consider death to have taken place.

Clinical death is when the person stops breathing and the heart stops. Brain death is when the brain no longer functions. Tissue death is when the individual tissue cell dies.

Clinically dead means that the person MAY still be recuisitated. (CPR, defibrilator, etc.) If a person is clinically dead long enough, brain death occurs, and rescuesitation is no longer possible. A person's body and tissues may be kept "alive" beyond this point via artifical means, such as with machines pumping blood and movine air in and out of the lungs.

Tissue death is going on all the time in a body. The dead tissue is removed (internally by the blood and kidneys, externally, the skin just sloughs off, a flake at a time.) These tissues are being constantly renewed, as long as the body is alive and healthy.

The body has a LOT of tissue, and all of these cells do not die at the same time. As they stop receiving blood, they die off, one cell at a time. The process takes a while, but not very long.

Certainly not long enough for new tissue to grow, such as with hair and nails. If any growth takes place, it would only be during the first few minutes after death. This growth would be much to little to even measure.

The apparent growth is due to the surrounding tissues shrinking back as the cells die and fluids dry up, exposing the hair and nail tissue that was below the surface.

Answer 3

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Skin and Nails are already dead tissue. What you are seeing is the shrinking of the underlying tissues that recede and give the appearance of growth (look up "dessication" which is just a fancy name for dehydration if you want to read more about it). It is this same process that causes lips and eyelids (though the eyes don't survive anyway as they are mostly water as well) to recess and show the teeth in a more pronounced state.

if you want to read more about this, one of the more popular books recently is called "Stiff" by Mary Roach, though others such as "The Body Farm" and "Corpse" have similar texts with a few more gruesome photos than the first book.

My text book in college was from two authors: Spitz & Fisher called "Medicolegal investigation of death" which is out of print now, but one of the best at covering what happens to bodies in death. Certainly not for the novice, but VERY complete in content.

Happy Researching!

Answer 4

No it isn't possible...

Your body basically runs on ATP to do everything. About 3-4 hours after you die all of your ATP stores have been depleted. This is why people go into rigormortis about 4 hours after death instead of immediately after death. With no ATP to use, your muscles stay contracted.

Anyways my point is that your body would be unable to produce the keratin needed for your hair to keep growing.

Of course, some catholics would argue with me since evidently some of their saints that are entombed *one of these is in puerto rico* are supposedly still growing hair and nails.. Some of them even supposedly bleed still.

So in summation, science says so. Metaphysics says yes but we can't prove it. =)

Answer 5

Yes it is true; it will keep growing at a slower rate until it eventually stops.

Answer 6

No. Your scalp and cuticles recede as the water leaves your body.

Answer 7

Yes.

Answer 8

we dont know how long this thing last, etc and we have heard yes it true from a mortician, etc.

Answer 9

Yes, it does, until your buddy loses proteins. weird but true.

Answer 10

no its just that a
person's skin recedes and decays after they dies.