We all like to look good, and we’ll often do questionable things to achieve that aim. In our quest to look younger, slimmer, and more attractive, we’ll follow odd, faddish diets that may cause long term damage to our health, or spend time on tanning beds that can cause skin cancer.
It seems we can now add hair colouring and straightening to that list. A new study of 4,285 African-American who use dark hair dyes, found a whopping 51% increase in breast cancer incidence. White women who use chemical hair straighteners had even worse news: they had a 74% increased risk of breast cancer. The cancer risk was even higher when white women used both dark hair dye and chemical straighteners, doubling their risk of breast cancer compared with white women who used neither.
It’s estimated that one-third of women over the age of 18 use some type of hair dye, so the information in this study affects a lot of people. But will it cause us to change our habits? According to the National Institute of Health, use of indoor tanning beds has remained prevalent despite strong evidence associating them with an increased risk of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers. Considering the number of women who struggle to conceal their grey hair each month, I suspect that most will relinquish their hair dye very reluctantly, no matter the negative health outcome.
On its website, the National Cancer Institute notes that few studies have ever been published on the association between hair dye and any form of cancer. Clearly, this subject merits further study. In the meantime, you may want to reconsider colouring your grey.
About the Author: Rebecca Wong has a BA in English Literature from the University of Waterloo and has been working in the herbal business since 2000. She studied at the Ontario College of Traditional Chinese Medicine under respected authorities Paul Des Rosiers and Vu Le, and graduated from the East West School of Planetary Herbology under Michael Tierra. She received training as a yoga teacher at The Branches in Kitchener/Waterloo, and therapeutic yoga teacher training from the School for Somatic Soulwork under Deniz Aydoslu. She now teaches yoga for anxiety, depression and burnout at Rebecca's Restful Yoga Studio in Toronto.