Akalites, others with tattoos may suffer blood cancer.
3 min read
A recent research conducted by a highly dependable health institution claims that those who wear tattoos risk blood cancer by up to 21 percent. According to the research conducted by Lund University Sweden, tattoo ink contains carcinogens which can be transported into the body thereby reaching lymph nodes as its final destination. Umuaka Times findings show that there are blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. Umuaka Times also gathered that the medical researchers “from Lund University Sweden used national registries to identify cases of lymphoma and analyze whether they could be linked to tattoos.”
After the experiment, the research team discovered “a 21% increased risk of lymphoma in people who had tattoos, compared to those who did not.”
Umuaka Times correspondents in Sweden reported last week from a document published in medical journal known as eClinical Medicine that the size of the tattoos in question are immaterial and cannot reduce the risk of infection.
In Umuaka and generally in many places across Nigeria, tattoo artists pay little or no attention to hygiene and health risks associated with their occupation.
A prominent member of the research team, Christel Nielsen, PhD and an associate professor at the University of Lund in Sweden, disclosed thus to Medical News Today: “There has been quite a lot of focus on the chemical content of tattoo ink during the last 10 years, particularly in Europe. Tattoo ink often contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer in other contexts, for example in occupationally exposed workers. We also know that the ink is transported away from the skin by the immune system, as the body tries to remove the ink particles that it perceives as something foreign that should not be there. It has been shown that this process moves the pigment to the lymph nodes, and that it is permanently stored there.”
In her conclusion, the associate professor concluded.
“We wanted to connect the dots and understand how our health is affected by permanent storage of potentially toxic chemicals within the immune system.”
Umuaka Times findings last week showed that many have also suffered seriously from tattoo related infections over the years. According to a story from Punch newspaper titled “Man ignores advice, dies after swimming with new tattoo”, a man died after ignoring a warning not to swim with his new tattoos.
“The unnamed 31-year-old suffered septic shock and cellulitis — an infection of the deeper layers of skin and the underlying tissue — after swimming in the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. Expert advice normally given to people with new tattoos says they should wait at least two weeks before submerging them in pools or seawater. But the man reportedly swam in the sea just five days after getting a cross tattooed on his right calf, resulting in infection and septic shock which led to his death.”
Another local newspaper from Nigeria reported that tattoo crisis may come even 15 years after drawing.
For now many Akalites and generally Nigerians who love tattoos are still rushing to draw new ones.
Danger indeed looms.
