From: Self
Experts say a new kind of tattoo could come with a variety of health risks.
Experts say a new kind of tattoo could come with a variety of health risks.
Like fashion, tattoos go through trends. Lower
back tattoos, inner wrist ink, and tiny finger tats have all had their
moment. Now, there’s a new tattoo trend showing up on social media: Blackout tattoos.
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Unlike its predecessors, blackout tattoos cover large portions of the body—arms, chests, legs, and stomachs—in solid black ink. Some are done to cover up existing tattoos; others are simply done for aesthetic reasons.
That’s a lot of ink for your body to handle at once. Is it safe? Experts aren’t entirely sure, but they have concerns.
[post_ads]“Studies
from the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, suggest that
the body…metabolizes small amounts of tattoo pigment, making it more
water soluble so it can get excreted,” women’s health expert Jennifer Wider,
M.D., tells SELF. “The research also shows that some pigment migrates
from the tattoo site to the body's lymph nodes.” Wider points out that
there are even a few cases of the pigment mimicking cancerous
calcifications, causing people to undergo unnecessary surgery.
Marie
Leger, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of dermatology at NYU who
has studied the impact of tattoos on skin tells SELF that this kind of
intense tattooing hasn’t been widely studied. However, she points out,
there may be some health risks.
“Black tattoo
ink is made up of carbon black, and contains polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons, including including benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) which are
suspected to be carcinogenic,” she says. And, Wider notes, having larger
amounts of this in your body could spell trouble for your future
health. “The more carcinogens circulating in the body, seeping into the
lymph system…it would be realistic to assume, the more risk of cancer,”
she says.
There is also a chance that a
blackout tattoo could affect vitamin D synthesis, Leger says, i.e. your
body’s ability to get and break down vitamin D from sun exposure. Diagnosing skin cancer and other skin conditions in areas that are covered by blackout ink could also prove difficult, Leger says.
Black
ink can cause symptomatic tattoo reactions like itching, redness, and
raised portions of the tattoo, Leger says, noting that it’s especially a
risk after sun exposure.
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While allergic
reactions are always a concern with tattoos, they’re less so with
blackout tattoos than tattoos with other colors of ink like red, green,
and blue, dermatologist David E. Bank, M.D.
, director of the Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic & Laser Surgery
in Mount Kisco, New York, tells SELF. But, he notes, black ink contains
iron oxide, which makes it difficult for MRI scanners to heat up and
take a reading, should a person with a blackout tattoo need it. “The
area might also swell or feel like it is burning while under an MRI,”
Bank says.
However, there may be a slight
health upside to blackout tattoos, Leger says: Danish researchers
studied the impact of black tattoo ink and UV radiation on hairless mice
and found that the mice that were tattooed had delayed skin cancers
compared to those that were not tattooed, indicating that the black
tattoos had a protective effect.
Of course,
there’s also the concern of what to do if you get a blackout tattoo and
decide down the road that you don’t want it anymore. It’s possible to
remove these kinds of tattoos, Leger says, but it can be a process:
“While black is usually one of the easier colors to remove with laser
tattoo removal, such a high color density makes tattoos more difficult
and more painful to remove.”
Bottom line: You probably want to think twice before getting a blackout tattoo.
