Are earlobe creases a sign of heart disease?
Dear Cecil: Do earlobe creases really indicate you may have coronary heart disease? — Jen Cecil replies: You may say: This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. But read some Straight Dope mail and you’ll realize dumbest-thing-ever is a pretty high bar. More to the point, earlobe creases shouldn’t be dismissed lightly, as they fall into the surprisingly large category of weird signs possibly indicative of heart disease. If you doubt it, have a seat while we inventory your personal issues, as it were. You might think you’ve got problems now, but in reality things may be oh so much worse. Earlobe crease (ELC), i.e., a line running diagonally from the bottom of the ear opening to the ear’s lower tip. I first discussed this in 1997 (The Straight Dope: Why do older men have hair growing in their noses and ears?), observing that, based on research then available, if you had hairy ears with creased lobes, you were basically a heart attack waiting to happen. The jury’s still out on the hairy p
