Why Aging Shows First at the Toes

Why Aging Shows First at the Toes

When you feel with age that your body is not what it used to be, the sign comes first at the ends rather than at the center of the trunk. The toes tingle or turn cold, the sole grows a little duller in sensation, and small wounds on the foot heal slowly. The fingertips are similar.

In my clinic I keep a close eye on these "ends." Why aging shows first at the ends of all places holds within it the structure of the body.

The Farthest Places Tire First

The reason is simple. The toes are the farthest outskirt of the body.

Start with the nerves. The nerve running from the spinal cord to the toes is the longest in our body. In a tall person it is over a meter. The nerve cell has to carry nourishment and supplies all the way to that long end, and as the years pile up and that transport slows bit by bit, it shows first at the farthest end. That is why toe sensation dulls before the fingertips, and the fingertips before the trunk.

The vessels are the same. Standing, the pressure reaching the toes is in fact higher because of gravity. But whether that blood actually reaches the tissue is settled not by the pressure in the large vessels but by the state of the fine vessels at the end. With age, as the returning force dulls and the small vessels decline, the end, where there is least reserve, receives less blood first. Where less blood arrives, warmth, sensation and the power to heal decline first.

That Is Why the Toes Are an Early News Carrier for the Whole Body

The toes tipping first is not because the feet are unusually weak, but because being the farthest place, their reserve runs out first. So I read the toes as an early news carrier of change in the whole body. The temperature and sensation of the toes, and the speed at which wounds heal, show in advance the state of circulation and nerves that has not yet shown at the trunk.

This is not meant to frighten you. Quite the opposite. That it shows first at the ends also means that caring for the ends lets you tend to that state early. Moving the feet often, keeping them warm, and watching over small wounds is, for this reason, not trivial.

The Main Trunk Still Has Room to Spare

Tests that measure the whole body — blood pressure, nerve conduction — generally look at the large trunk lines. But the place aging touches first is not those large lines, it is the finest outskirts. That is why "the tests are all normal" yet only the toes are numb and cold — a thing that seems, at a glance, not to add up. The large lines still have reserve; the ends have run out of it first.

But if numbness in one foot alone suddenly worsens, if a wound will not heal and changes color, or if the calf tightens when you walk so that you have to rest — this is different from the slow story of aging. A test to check the vessels and nerves comes first. Especially if you have diabetes, the feet are a place that must always be watched.

Aging does not begin in the center of the body and spread; it presses in quietly from the ends, where there is least reserve.

If the toes are colder and duller than before, that does not mean only the feet have aged, but may be early news, sent ahead from the body's outskirts.

Related Reading

• The Body Does Not Age All at Once — cells are replaced at different rates in different places

References

• Length-dependent neuropathy (dying-back), which tires first from the end of the longest nerve (the foot) — Peripheral Neuropathies (Cambridge)
• With age the number and density of small vessels fall, and blood flow to the skin is reduced by 40% between the ages of 20 and 70 — The Effect of Aging on the Cutaneous Microvasculature, 2015

Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (PhD in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)