Hair Dyes and Straighteners Might be a Breast Cancer Risk, Especially for Black Women, Study Finds
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Hair Dyes and Straighteners Might Be a Breast Cancer Risk, Especially for Black Women, Study Finds
If you're a woman, regularly coloring or straightening your hair might come with a hidden risk, according to new government-led research. The study found a link between using permanent hair dye and straightening products and an increased risk of breast cancer in women, especially for black women.
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health looked at data from an earlier government project that studied the long-term health of healthy women in the U.S. whose sisters had earlier developed cancer, aptly named the Sister Study. As part of the project, women were asked about their use of hair products over the 12 months prior to their enrolling in the research. Using this data, they tracked the health of some 45,000 U.S. women between the ages of 35 to 74 over an average of eight years.
Women who reported regularly using permanent hair dyes before the study began, they found, were 9 percent more likely than women who didn't use hair dye to develop breast cancer. And those who used straighteners were 18 percent more likely-an increased risk that shot up to 30 percent for women who used straighteners every five to eight weeks.
The study's findings were published Tuesday in the International Journal of Cancer.
As is often the case in studying cancer risk, these sorts of studies can only indirectly suggest that something causes cancer. And while some research has pointed to a link between hair dye and cancer, the evidence as a whole has been mixed. A 2018 review that looked specifically at breast cancer, however, did find a positive link to hair dye products.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.