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Heart disease can be silent, but what if your body sends signals — other than overt symptoms like chest pain — that you’re at risk?
One potential sign is right on the side of your head.
It takes just a glimpse in the mirror to spot, and it’s been the subject of a surprising number of studies.
Some researchers call it a “dermatological sign indicative of cardiovascular disease.”
Cardiologist Tip of the Day: Check Your Earlobes for a Crease
Known as Frank's sign, this is a diagonal earlobe crease, or DELC.
It’s defined as a “continuous fold” that runs diagonally to the back edge of the earlobe at a 45-degree angle and covers more than two-thirds of the earlobe length. You can see examples here.
Frank’s sign is named after Dr. Sanders T. Frank, a pulmonologist who first associated the crease with coronary artery disease in the 1970s.
“The theory is that if you develop this little crease in your earlobe, maybe you have some sort of vascular insufficiency,” Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, tells TODAY.com.
“It's interesting and there may be something to it.”
Why It Matters
The cardiovascular mortality risk is “significantly higher” in people who have this diagonal earlobe crease — especially if it's deep and develops in both ears, according to a 2024 study published in The American Journal of Medicine.
The crease may develop because of “microvascular disease-associated weakening of elastic fibers in the ear lobes, reflecting a similar pathology in weakened coronary arteries,” researchers noted in the journal Circulation.
Having a diagonal earlobe crease “seems to be of prognostic value” for heart disease, especially for younger patients, and “it seems advisable that its presence should be inspected regularly during physical examination,” a separate study found.
But the presence of an earlobe crease alone is not a reliable indicator for diagnosing coronary artery disease, other researchers said.
How to Get Started
Take a look at your earlobe and see if there’s a diagonal crease. If yes, it might be worth asking your doctor about it.
Freeman says it could be a clue there's some sort of risk going on, but he finds it anecdotal.
The cardiologist doesn’t specifically look at people’s ear lobes when he examines patients.
“It's an interesting, possibly correlative sign,” he notes. “(But) it would be hard for me to recommend a treatment based on someone's earlobe,” he notes.
Freeman prefers people focus on a healthy lifestyle instead to reduce their heart disease risk.
TODAY’s Expert Tip of the Day series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
