The risks of beauty

This is not the first study that has linked hair dye to various forms of lymphoma, but according to the newest report in June from the American Journal of Epidemiology, use of hair dye may increase the risk of certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

Up to this point, the epidemiological studies exploring the association with NHL have yielded inconsistent results.

This study out of Yale pooled data from four published case-control studies and covered 4461 patients with incident NHL and 5799 control subjects.

Among women, 75% of the cases and 70% of the controls had ever used hair dyes. Among men, 10% of both cases and controls had done so.

The pooled data results showed there was a 30% increased risk of NHL among women (but not men) who started using hair dye before 1980, compared with nonusers.

For those women who began using hair dye in 1980 or afterward, the risk appeared to be limited to users of dark-colored dyes.

Based on this pooled data, it appears that the longer one uses hair dyes, the larger the risk.

So ladies, consider your natural hair color a gift and forego adding more chemicals to your bodies.