What Your Hands Are Warning You About Your Heart
Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast
Dr. Eric Berg
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Almost half of all heart attacks are silent heart attacks, which means there are no warning signs. Fortunately, your hands can reveal heart disease warning signs that could save your life. Discover the key health markers, like weak grip strength or clubbed fingers, that can provide important insight into your cardiovascular health.
🌟 Which of the 10 health signals are you missing? Take the 2-minute quiz to discover your #1 Health Lever: https://drbrg.co/4tO9nV9
0:00 Introduction: Hands and cardiovascular health
0:18 Heart attack symptoms
0:36 Grip strength test
3:17 Clubbed fingers and white nails
7:40 Heart health tips
Make a fist! It may tell you more about your heart health than blood pressure. Nearly 45–50% of heart attacks occur without warning symptoms, making early health markers especially important in heart attack prevention.
Here are 7 ways your hands may reveal early signs of heart disease and overall cardiovascular health:
• Weak grip strength
• Inability to lift the ring finger from a table
• Clubbed fingernails
• White nails
• Yellow bumps on the tendons of the hands
• Fine tremors
• Cold hands
These physical signs may provide insight into circulation, cardiovascular health, high cholesterol symptoms, and other underlying health conditions.
An A1C test, a resting heart rate test, and a fasting insulin test can also provide helpful insight into your cardiovascular health.
Dr. Eric Berg DC Bio:
Dr. Berg, age 61, is a chiropractor who specializes in Healthy Ketosis & Intermittent Fasting. He is the Director of Dr. Berg Nutritionals and author of the best-selling book The Healthy Keto Plan. He no longer practices, but focuses on health education through social media.
Disclaimer:
Dr. Eric Berg received his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1988. His use of “doctor” or “Dr.” in relation to himself solely refers to that degree. Dr. Berg is a licensed chiropractor in Virginia, California, and Louisiana, but he no longer practices chiropractic in any state and does not see patients, so he can focus on educating people as a full-time activity, yet he maintains an active license. This video is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. It does not create a doctor-patient relationship between Dr. Berg and you. You should not make any change in your health regimen or diet before first consulting a physician and obtaining a medical exam, diagnosis, and recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
*Dr. Eric Berg, DC is not AI-generated. AI-enhanced elements may be used in this video for production purposes only.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I want you to make a fist right now and squeeze it as hard as you can. The fist that you just made |
| 0:04.6 | will tell you more about what's going on with your heart than even blood pressure does. So in the next |
| 0:09.9 | five minutes, I'm going to show you seven things about your hands that will give you some indication |
| 0:15.2 | of what's going on deeper inside with your cardiovascular system. What you need to know is between |
| 0:19.9 | 45 and 50% of heart attacks |
| 0:22.2 | are completely silent. They give absolutely no symptoms whatsoever before you get one. Even if you |
| 0:28.6 | have high blood pressure and normal cholesterol, you can still have a heart attack. Even if you have no |
| 0:33.5 | chest pain, you can still have a heart attack. The first one we're going to talk about |
| 0:38.0 | is number one, the grip test, okay, published in the Lancet in 2015. They found that for every |
| 0:45.6 | five kilograms, which is 11 pounds of grip strength you lose over time, the risk of dying from heart attack increases by 17 percent. |
| 0:57.0 | And this wasn't just done in one study. It was in several studies. |
| 1:00.0 | Grip strength beats blood pressure at predicting who will die from heart disease. |
| 1:07.0 | When's the last time the doctor ever had you do grip strength? Probably never, because they just focus on blood pressure. |
| 1:13.1 | But what's even more interesting is why grip strength relates to your cardiovascular system. |
| 1:18.2 | And if you have a grip strength tester and you want to know what number to stay above, |
| 1:21.9 | for men, it would be 81 pounds or 37 kilograms. |
| 1:26.2 | If you're a female, you want to keep it above 51 pounds, which is 24 |
| 1:30.8 | kilograms. And if you don't have a grip strength tester, you can just use another test, |
| 1:35.5 | opening jars, okay? Do you tend to ask other people to open jars? Or what about when you |
| 1:41.3 | shake hands with someone? Do you feel that you can actually give a firm handshake or do you feel that it's a little bit weak? Number two, ring finger lifts off the table. |
| 1:50.3 | Does the skin in your palm feel ropey or have tension when you try to do this? This is not really |
| 1:56.5 | a hand problem. It's a little warning light from the palm of your hand. They've done a review of |
... |
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