I have to admit something: I love tattoos. Always have. I have the utmost respect for the artists sitting there for hours and carefully painting impressive picture under one’s skin. With that being said, sadly I was not able to get inked myself so far. But this is still something I want to do at some point in my life. But some people have been warning me and urged me not to do this. Mainly because they are worried of the possible dangers which come along with the used ink. Some argue, you can get ill and eventually die of cancer. Let’s find out how much truth to this statement actually is.

Inked

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Initially, I wanted to write about something else today, but last night I read an interesting article on Politico⁽¹⁾ about the possible issues associated with the ink, which is often used for tattoos.
Since I’m a curious guy and also somewhat affected by these problems (or likely will be, as soon as I get my own tattoos), it was only natural for me to dig a little deeper. But more about that later.
Personally, I was always interested about the things we put into our bodies (no, not THESE things, shame on you and your dirty, little mind). Therefore, I read a lot about nutrition, drugs, alcohol and so on. Tattoo ink is just the next logical step and since most of my closer friends are inked as well, it can’t hurt to get a bit more knowledge about that.
But as I already told you in the introduction part, some people I talked to believe that getting tattoos is bad in general, because the toxicity of the ink is at least questionable and might also be associated with many occurring health problems. I tend to get annoyed by these claims – most likely because they are aiming at something I admire and want to do myself – so for my own sake, I needed to learn more about the inks in tattoos and whether there actually are real dangers involved or the people I talk to are just conservative pricks without any sense for art.
One thing seems to be sure: the whole issue is not as clear and easy as some people might argue.

Mens sana in corpore sano

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Since this is going to be another article about the toxicity of something, I will try my best not to mess up things too much, in order to escape the eternal wrath of our beloved go-to-toxicologist Hive account@sco.

To prevent this article from becoming too extensive and bore you guys with too many details, I am only going to focus upon the issues associated with the ink – and not on other problems which might occur during the process of receiving a tattoo or even afterwards. Although there are sometimes allergic reactions of the skin when the ink is injected⁽¹⁾, these are relatively harmless – especially when compared to another probable health concern which might occur: cancer.
So, the most important question is whether a tattoo can actually cause cancer and will kill you eventually.

To spoil the fun right from the start: we don’t know that – yet.
So far, there were no epidemiological studies which put emphasis on a link between tattoo inks and the likelihood of cancer – but just because something has not been researched does not mean, it is non-existent. So far, I know of no studies which were conducted to prove the existence of unicorns – but that doesn’t mean, unicorns are not real. Checkmate unicorn-haters.

But what do we know?
Well, it seems the evidence for a connection between cancer symptoms (or cutaneous malignancies, to be precise) is rather thin. According to a study conducted by Kluger et al. in 2012, there were only 50 cases of people with tattoos which actually reported on these symptoms. Considering the fact, that there are literally millions over millions of inked people worldwide – it seems to be a far-fetched conclusion to assume a correlation between cancer and tattoos which is more than coincidentally⁽²⁾.
But, then again, the authors of these study made it also clear, that there is just not enough data to draw a definite conclusion. So, caution is still needed.

To get a better understanding of what is actually happening after receiving a tattoo, it is helpful to take a closer look at in vivo studies done with mice. In one of these studies the researchers were using tattoo ink on mice’s skins and used UV or laser light sources afterwards to evaluate how the ink is reacting to the exposure of light⁽³⁾. Their findings were quite remarkable. After a period of 42 days the amount of remaining ink pigment on the mice’s skins was reduced by 32% - meaning, these 32% had “travelled” (or better, were discomposed) into other parts of their bodies, mostly towards the lymph nodes and maybe even into some other organs. But there’s even more to it. With an addition of UV light, the amount of the original injected ink pigments was reduced by a vast amount of 60%. More than half of the ink – woosh. Gone. So, given a standard tattoo with about 250mg of ink which is injected into one’s body – up to 32% percent of that (roughly 80mg) are enjoying a journey towards the lymph nodes or even 150mg are going to be decomposed via UV light – dismantling these pigments into possibly carcinogenic amines. Ouch. So, even if there is no clear link between cancer and tattoos so far (mainly because of a lack of sufficient data), it is not entirely stupid to take at least some precautions.

But that’s not enough. There are even more problems. In contrast to most cosmetic products which have to follow very strict guidelines to ensure they are not harming human health – tattoo ink is so far not considered as a cosmetic product. In addition to that, the ink which is usually used was not originally produced to be used as an injection below human skin, hence lacking medical purity. This is probably one of the main reasons why there might actually be some issues and negative health reactions associated with these inks. They are not intended to be used on humans in the first place, but usually products of the chemical industry intended for other purposes.

So, everything is fucked up and my tattoos are really going to kill me eventually?
Relax. As being said, there are millions of inked people out there and most of them are doing quite fine. So, you will most like be alright as well. To ease your mind a bit, you can take a look at another study done with mice. This is a relatively new one and the researchers were using banned inks on purpose in order to prove whether these are actually carcinogenic or not⁽⁴⁾.
Well, despite very extensive tattooing the mice were doing relatively fine. Of course, this is also no definitive evidence, that these inks (or any other) will not ever cause cancer – because the sample size was small and, in case you were not aware of this, mice are not humans.
In addition to that, you should be aware, that the carcinogenic elements which will most likely rest in your lymph nodes are permanent. That means, this can be one reason for a life-long increased risk⁽⁵⁾ of eventually contracting cancer – even if not caused by these elements in the first place, since the concrete mechanism is not fully understood yet.
One thing is for sure: more research is needed.

Incorpus

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So, what’s the take-away of this article? Are we all going to die? Yes. That’s most likely going to happen. Will it be caused by tattoos? Maybe, but probably not. Right now, there is just not enough data available to draw any definite conclusion whether the ink used for tattoos is as dangerous as some may believe.
But we do know, that this ink is actually not intended to be used for injections into the human body in the first place. This is a fact. And the lack of medical purity of the ink is definitely something you should be aware of, if you decide to get you own piece of body art. Altering your body appearance is definitely nothing which should be an easy-made decision and you should be aware of the possible risks at the same time.

But. Life is risky in general. A lot of things we do can have detrimental effects on our health – but we do them regardless, because they are an essential part of enjoying our lives and fulfilling our desires. Which is ok in my world. Tattoos are definitely not something which comes along completely risk-free – but without risk, where would be the fun?

Feel always free to discuss my ideas and share your own thoughts about the things I’m writing about. Nobody is omniscient and if we all walk away a bit smarter than before, we’ll have achieved a lot.
Thanks for reading and stay sceptical.

Hive account@egotheist

Make sure, to check out #steemstem for more science related content.

References

_{(1) Tattoo ink and EU regulations | (2) Tattoos and cancer | (3) Tattoo ink and light | (4) Banned ink and cancer | (5) Life-long cancer risk}

Debunk-Tuesday – Tattoos will kill you

Inked

Mens sana in corpore sano

Incorpus

References

Debunk-Tuesday