Study exposes alarming risks for people who have tattoos on their body
If you've got any tattoos then you might want to read on as there could be the chance that your body ink is affecting your long-term health.
As of last year, it was said that over a quarter of UK residents have some kind of tattoo.
Of course it's known that getting a tattoo comes with its risks; from allergic reactions to the ink or developing a skin infection, to the tattooed area of your skin reacting to getting an MRI scan. However, long-term health risks haven't really been investigated - until now.
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Researchers at Sweden's Lund University have been looking into the matter and conducted a study using a sample of 11,905 people to see if having tattoos could be a risk factor for cancer in the lymphatic system (lymphoma) in particular.
Lymphoma is a type of blood cancer and more than 13,000 people are diagnosed with the condition each year in the UK.
Of the 11,905 people in the study, 2,938 of them had lymphoma when they were between 20 and 60 years old.
And in the group with lymphoma, 21 percent were tattooed (289 people), while 18 percent were tattooed in the control group without a lymphoma diagnosis (735 people).
Christel Nielsen, the researcher at Lund University who led the study, said of the findings: "After taking into account other relevant factors, such as smoking and age, we found that the risk of developing lymphoma was 21 percent higher among those who were tattooed.
"It is important to remember that lymphoma is a rare disease and that our results apply at the group level. The results now need to be verified and investigated further in other studies and such research is ongoing."
Nielsen added that the study is 'more complex than we initially thought' as their findings also suggested that size of a person's tattoo doesn't necessarily affect the lymphoma risks.
"We do not yet know why this was the case. One can only speculate that a tattoo, regardless of size, triggers a low-grade inflammation in the body, which in turn can trigger cancer," she explained.
While it isn't totally clear why tattoos might trigger a higher risk of lymphoma, a 2016 study in Australia looking into the ingredients of tattoo ink found some concerning results.
Researched conducted by the Australian Government’s Department of Health discovered that some black inks contained a carcinogen called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Other pigments may include potentially harmful substances like alcohol, mercury, lead and copper.
Niamh Shackleton