In research no one wants to hear, a new study finds that women who dye their hair frequently could be at higher risk for developing breast cancer. Professor Kefah Mokbel, a breast cancer surgeon in London, analyzed studies which looked for a link between breast cancer and hair color and found a 14% increase of the disease in women who color their hair.
“Although further work is required to confirm our results, our findings suggest that exposure to hair dyes may contribute to breast cancer risk,” the study concludes. To lower the risk, Mokbel suggests cutting back to coloring hair only up to five times a year, and using natural products to color it.
This isn’t great news for those of us who aren’t walking around with the color hair mother nature gave us. Women who dash to the salon every four to six weeks to keep those roots touched-up won’t want to have to give up those lovely locks in order to avoid an increased risk of breast cancer, but this latest study isn’t the only one that’s come to this conclusion.
In a different study from Finland researchers also found that women who use hair dye were more likely to develop breast cancer, but they didn’t determine if the products were the direct cause of the disease. “It might be, for example, that women who use hair dyes also use other cosmetics more than women who report never using hair dyes,” study authors explain.
So maybe it’s time we start looking into those natural hair dyes, because looking good is not worth it if it’s costing you your health. Or we could always go with our natural hair color … but who wants to do that?
Source: New York Post