Biting your nails is an easy habit to form and a hard habit to break. But no matter your reason for doing it, you really need to learn how to stop doing it, ASAP — according to experts, continuing to bite your fingernails is way riskier than you think. As Purvi Parikh, an allergy and infectious disease specialist with New York University's Langone Medical Center told The Cut, your fingernails can collect all sorts of nasties, from bacteria, dust, and dirt to debris, oils, and viruses. Yuck!

咬指甲是一个容易养成的习惯，也是一个很难改掉的习惯。但是，不管你为什么要这样做，你真的需要尽快学会如何停止这样做——根据专家的说法，继续咬指甲的风险比你想象的要大得多。正如纽约大学朗根医学中心的过敏和传染病专家Purvi Parikh所说，你的指甲会收集各种各样的脏东西，从细菌、灰尘、污垢到碎片、油污和病毒。天啊!

And if that's not enough to gross you out, maybe the fact that this all of this gunk can make you sick will. "Every time you touch your face — especially your mouth, nose, and eyes — you're transferring all of those germs. And you can get sick," Parikh explained, warning that biting your nails is, in fact, the easiest way to get an infection.

如果这还不足以让你恶心的话，也许下面这一切会让你恶心。帕里克解释说：“每次你触摸你的脸——特别是你的嘴、鼻子和眼睛——你都在转移所有这些细菌。你可能会生病。”他警告说，事实上，咬指甲是最容易感染的方式。

Biting your nails can lead to nail damage and deformities

咬指甲会导致指甲损伤和畸形

On top of contracting infections, regularly biting your nails can also lead to nail deformation. "From chronic nail biting, you can damage the nail matrix (the tissue under the actual nail) and can have permanent nail deformities like ridges," New York City-based dermatologist Debra Jaliman told Health. You can even damage your teeth, whether they're your natural chompers or artificial ones. "Just as natural teeth can fracture from nail biting, porcelain veneers, and crowns can suffer the same fate," Gigi Meinecke, DMD, a Maryland-based dentist with the Academy of General Dentistry, told Health.

除了感染，经常咬指甲也会导致指甲变形。纽约市皮肤科医生黛布拉·贾利曼(Debra Jaliman)在接受《健康》杂志采访时说：“长期咬指甲会破坏指甲基质(实际指甲下的组织)，并可能导致永久性的指甲畸形，比如指甲隆起。”。咬指甲甚至会损坏你的牙齿，不管是天然的还是人为的。“正如原生牙齿可能因咬指甲而断裂一样，瓷贴面和牙冠也可能遭受同样的命运，”马里兰州普通牙科学院牙科医生Gigi Meinecke告诉《健康》杂志。

And there's even more bad news for nail biters who wear nail polish. According to Kristine Arthur, M.D., an internist at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in California, biting nails that have nail polish cause toxic poisoning. "Regular nail polishes have plenty of toxins themselves, but gel polishes have chemicals that are specifically approved only for topical use, meaning they're not meant to be ingested," she revealed.

对于涂指甲油的咬指甲者来说，还有更多的坏消息。加州橙海岸纪念医学中心的内科医生克里斯汀·阿瑟医学博士说，咬涂有指甲油的指甲会导致中毒。她透露：“普通指甲油本身含有大量毒素，但指甲油凝胶含有的化学物质只被批准局部使用，这意味着它们不应该被摄入。”