According to analysis of correlations between nail growth and diseases, the selenium content oftoenails can be a barometer of liver or coronary artery disease. In addition, the calcium and magnesiumcontents of fingernails can be correlated with Bone Mineral Density (BMD) according to age. This studycollected nail samples from adolescents, who are undergoing rapid mental and physical development,and analyzed the major minerals. Adolescence is a critical period in which nutritional balance has asignificant effect on mental and physical growth. For this study, nails were sampled from a total of60 adolescents in Seoul, and the contents of 15 different minerals (macro- and micro-minerals) weremeasured using the ICP emission spectrochemical analysis tester. The mineral content of nails by genderwas then comparatively analyzed. In terms of macro-minerals, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium,phosphorus and sulfur were measured. In terms of micro-minerals, copper, zinc, iron, manganese,chromium, selenium, boron, cobalt and molybdenum were measured to provide a reference range for themineral content of nails in Korean adolescents. According to a comparative analysis of mineral contentsbetween boys and girls based on the results of the test above, boys had greater mineral content thangirls in fingernails for Na (p<.05) and K (p<.001). In the cases of Zn (p<.001), Fe (p<.001), Mn (p<.001)and Cr (p<.001), in contrast, the nails of girls were higher than those of boys. This study investigatedthe mineral content of fingernails in Korean adolescents, which has never been undertaken before. Because there were no reference data on the standard mineral content of adolescent fingernails, thisstudy measured the average reference range through the quantitative measurement of mineral contentsper 1 gram of fingernail using 60 adolescents as the sample. Changes in mineral content were examinedthrough comparative analysis between boys and girls. The study results found that nail samples canbe used as a clinical tool to measure Korean adolescents’ nutritional status based on mineral content,which revealed statistically significant differences. The reference values obtained in this study wouldbe useful in studying the relationship between diverse diseases and mineral content of nails in Koreanadolescents provided that there is no large regional difference in terms of the mineral content of nails inthe adolescents living in other regions.