Hair Dye and Cancer – Is There a Risk?

You might have heard in the news recently of a new study that has been published, offering evidence that hair dye may be linked to cancer. Here’s everything you need to learn about the study, the information we do and don’t know already, and ultimately, how much of a risk there really is.

As reported by Yahoo! News, a study by the National Institutes of Health found that women who use permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners are putting themselves at a higher risk of developing breast cancer. This risk has found to be particularly high for black women.

Published on December 4th in the International Journal of Cancer, the study looked at the use of permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners over a year-long period in an estimated 46,000 women between the ages of thirty-five and seventy-four. All of these women had a sister who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

The research from the study uncovered that black women who used permanent hair dye had an increased risk of up to a 45 percent of developing breast cancer. In white women, there was just a 7 percent increased risk. It was also found that the more frequently these certain hair dyes were used, the higher the risk. According to the study, black women using permanent hair dye after every five to eight weeks had a 60 percent increase of developing breast cancer, and for white woman, the increased risk was at eight percent.

Hair dye wasn’t the only thing that was found to be a cancer threat, with chemical straighteners also being associated with an increased risk of the disease. The study found that the women who used chemical hair straighteners every five to eight weeks or more had a 30 percent more increased risk of developing breast cancer. This percentage was found to be similar in both black women and white women.

So far, there’s very little information on why exactly breast cancer risk is so much higher in black women using permanent hair dye, although it’s worth noting that generally, black women have higher rates of the disease than white women before age 40, and are more likely to die from breast cancer at every age, as reported by Yahoo! News.

Our verdict on this new information is that there is a lot that’s yet to be said on the subject. For starters, the study doesn’t clearly link to a certain hair dye, and it seems that there needs to be more research carried out to find out exactly which chemicals are problematic. As participants in the study didn’t actually identify exactly which hair dye products or straighteners they used, it’s hard to know whether a certain dye, dyes, or hair straighteners are to blame.

Hair dye contains hundreds of chemicals, some of which we know aren’t the best for our health already. It makes it hard for us to specifically say which chemical might be linked to the increased breast cancer risk – and whether it’s this chemical alone that’s at fault. Hair dye might not be fully to blame for the increased breast cancer risk, as, in all cases, there are multiple factors to consider. It’s unlikely that the use of one hair product alone would directly link to the increase in cancer rates.

While it’s clear that this news is far from promising, there is still a lot more research that needs to be done before we can be certain of how exactly permanent hair dyes and chemical straighteners are linked to an increased risk of cancer. Scientific research needs to focus on the specific chemicals that are to blame, so that cosmetic manufacturers can work to replace them in their hair dye formulas in the future.

As always, we would advise that if you enjoy dying your hair, you visit a hairdresser you can trust to get the job done. At-home hair dyes tend to include a larger number of dangerous chemicals, and can be far more harmful to your hair from one dye job to the next. Your hairdresser can use a much kinder hair dye treatment on your hair, for better and longer-lasting results. They’ll also be able to advise you on any concerns you might have about dying your hair.