Getting a tattoo could give you cancer, new study warns

The ink used for tattoos may contain chemicals that could cause cancer, a new study shows. Out of 56 samples of tattoo inks investigated, nearly half were found to contain carcinogens. These findings are concerning as the industry is largely unregulated especially in the US where two out of five people have a tattoo.

Carcinogenic inks

Scientists at the State University of New York (SUNY) say after testing the samples of tattoo inks, they found that nearly 50% had azo-compounds, which degenerate under ultraviolet light — emitted in sunlight — into cancer-causing chemicals, according to DailyMail.

Apart from these compounds, many of the sampled inks also contained very tiny particles which the researchers warned could get into the body’s cell nucleus, triggering cancerous mutations. Speaking at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago, on Wednesday, one of the researchers, John Swierk said:

When you get down to that size regime you start to have concerns about nanoparticles penetrating cells, getting into the nucleus of cells, and doing damage and causing problems like cancer that way.

What are the risks?

The tattoo industry is largely unregulated in the US, although body arts have gained more social acceptance in recent years. However, the researchers say not much is known about the actual composition of the inks used as regulators pay little or no attention to the industry.

In the EU, regulators have banned the use of blue and green tattoo dyes over concerns they may be carcinogenic, DailyMail said.

Dr Swierk added that there’s a lot more work needed to understand how the pigments used in tattoo inks work.

We don’t necessarily know what the pigments break down into and so that’s the real concern. It’s possible that you might have pigments that by themselves are safe, but that photo decomposes into something of concern.

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