Bodily Oddities

Gorlin's sign

Also called: Gorlin sign · Touching your nose with your tongue

Touching the tip of your nose with your tongue. About 10% of people can do it. About half of people with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can, so doctors use it as a quick check for stretchy connective tissue.

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How common

~10% of people About 50% of people with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can do it.

Can you do this?

How it works

Gorlin’s sign is the ability to touch the tip of your nose with the tip of your tongue. Doctors call it a sign because it hints at something else. It is named after Robert Gorlin, an American oral pathologist3.

Whether you can do it depends on several things. The length of your tongue. The length of the band under your tongue, the frenulum, which limits how far the tip can reach. The distance from your upper lip to your nose. And how stretchy the tissues of your lip and face are.

The sign turns up far more often in people with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome1. Ehlers-Danlos is a group of inherited conditions where collagen, the protein that gives tissue its strength, is weaker or more elastic than usual2. Skin stretches further. Joints bend further. The tongue and lip reach further too.

Being able to touch your nose does not mean you have a connective tissue disorder. Most people who can do it are simply built that way. Doctors use the sign as one small clue among many, alongside checks like bending the thumb back to the forearm4.

How common it is

The source gives both figures without saying how they were measured1. The 10% general-population estimate is therefore a rough baseline rather than a precise census figure. It is a useful screening clue for doctors precisely because the gap between 10% and 50% is so wide.

Try it

  1. Stick your tongue out as far as it goes.
  2. Curl the tip upward toward your nose.
  3. Push your lower jaw forward a little. This brings the tongue closer.
  4. If the tip touches the nose, you have the sign. If it stops a few millimetres short, you are in the majority.

You cannot train this one. Tongue length and frenulum length do not change with practice.

Is it a problem?

No. Being able to touch your nose with your tongue is not a problem by itself, and it does not mean you have a connective tissue disorder. It is one small clue among several, not a diagnosis.

Mention it to a doctor alongside other signs, such as:

  • very stretchy skin,
  • joints that bend further than normal,
  • frequent joint pain.

That combination is what points toward a condition like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome2.

Sources and further material

  1. Wikipedia Gorlin sign Prevalence in the general population and in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
  2. Wikipedia Ehlers–Danlos syndromes The group of connective tissue disorders the sign is linked to.
  3. Wikipedia Robert J. Gorlin The American oral pathologist the sign is named after.
  4. Wikipedia Hypermobility (joints) The Beighton score, including the thumb-to-forearm test.

Updated , first published .

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