That tattoo you’ve been dreaming of to express your individuality? It could come with a price. The study analyzed data from nearly 12,000 people aged 20 to 60, matched with a control group of the same age and sex without lymphoma. Participants completed questionnaires about lifestyle factors, including tattoos.
Researchers found that those with tattoos were more likely to develop malignant lymphoma compared to those without tattoos. People with tattoos had a 21 percent higher risk of developing any type of lymphoma after adjusting for other factors. “We do not yet know why this was the case,” Christel Nielsen, who led the study, said in a press release.
”One can only speculate that a tattoo, regardless of size, triggers a low-grade inflammation in the body, which in turn can trigger cancer.” The picture is thus more complex than initially thought, she noted. The research is the first to investigate tattoos as a risk factor for cancer in the lymphatic system, Ms.
Nielsen told The Epoch Times. Further studies investigating potential links between tattoos and other cancer types are underway. The findings showed that compared to never receiving a tattoo, getting a first tattoo before age 20 was associated with elevated myeloid neoplasm risk, while receiving a first tattoo at age 20 or older was linked to higher lymphoma risk.
However, the authors cautioned that these estimates were “imprecise.”.
