This Harmless Wrinkle Could Indicate Whether You Have An Underlying Health Condition

A diagonal earlobe crease, known as Frank's sign after the doctor who first noted it, has drawn renewed attention after an influencer claimed it could signal cardiac trouble. Doctors interviewed, including Kaiser Permanente's Walter Robertson and Hoag's Dipti Itchhaporia, confirm a real correlation exists between the crease and certain atherosclerotic conditions, distinguishing it from ordinary age-related wrinkles by its depth and single diagonal line.

Robertson cautions the sign can appear from natural aging alone and is not used by itself to guide treatment, meaning a crease is a prompt for attention rather than a diagnosis. The article credits the claim's viral spread to a TikTok video, an unusual origin story for a piece of century-old medical observation getting fact-checked in 2026.

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