Bill Dalton: Tattoos and cancer
About one-third of U.S. adults now have at least one tattoo and 22% more than two.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.
Remember when just about everybody — especially movie stars and celebrities — smoked cigarettes in the 1940s and 1950s? It was cool.
Then someone discovered smoking caused cancer. Cancer not cool.
Now, have you noticed just about everybody — especially movie stars and celebrities — got tattoos in the 2000s? It was cool.
Unfortunately, someone discovered that ink might cause cancer. Cancer not cool.
If you think about it, inhaling smoke into your lungs isn’t much different from injecting chemicals under your skin. It stands to reason your body might not appreciate it. Of course, reason has nothing to do with getting tatted up. It’s just cool.
That’s why about one-third of U.S. adults now have at least one tattoo and 22% more than two. Perhaps more concerning, more than half the women between 18 and 49 are inked.
Coincidentally, breast cancer rates among young women in the United States are soaring but no one — at least not yet — is connecting the dots to all those tattoos.
Since I couldn’t remember anyone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warning of any ill health effects associated with tattoos, other than making it difficult to detect skin cancers, I consulted a reliable medical authority — the Internet.
Apparently, it’s no secret that particles of tattoo ink can migrate from the skin and accumulate in the lymph nodes over time, and recent research suggests an association between being tattooed and a higher risk of lymphoma.But maybe it’s kind of a secret. Does anyone who’s tattooed remember being advised by your artist about ink containing carcinogenic chemicals, or seeing warning signs in the parlor similar to those on a pack of cigarettes?
A recent study by Danish researchers drew on information from a database of more than 5,900 twins, along with cancer records, to compare cancer prevalence among people with tattoos versus those without. “Our study suggests an increased hazard of lymphoma and skin cancers among tattooed individuals,” the researchers concluded.
That study followed similar research in Sweden in 2024 that drew on that nation’s cancer registry. It reported that lymphoma was found to be 21 percent more common among tattooed people.
The big caveat with such studies is that they don’t prove getting tattooed is a direct cause of any increased cancer risk. It could be other factors.
But lymph nodes are a crucial part of the immune system, helping to fight infections and filter harmful substances from the body. Researchers are concerned that tattoo ink may trigger chronic inflammation in the lymph nodes, which over time could lead to abnormal cell growth and an increased risk of cancer.
“We suspect that the body perceives them as foreign substances,” said Henrik Frederiksen of Odense University Hospital. “This may mean that the immune system is constantly trying to respond to the ink, and we do not yet know whether this persistent strain could weaken the function of the lymph nodes...”
Since cancer can take years to develop, exposure when you’re young may not lead to illness until decades later, much like smoking.
Interestingly, size seems to matter. Any tattoo bigger than the palm of your hand could be a problem. For lymphoma, the rate is nearly three times higher for the group of individuals with large tattoos compared to those without tattoos.“This suggests that the bigger the tattoo and the longer it has been there, the more ink accumulates in the lymph nodes,” said Signe Bedsted Clemmensen, an assistant professor of biostatistics.
It’s also interesting that U.S. data show breast cancer incidence in women under 50 is rising faster than in older women. It’s up 15 percent over the past decade among younger women, a rate some consider alarming. What’s worse, women under 40 are nearly 40 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than older women.
I’m no oncologist or cancer researcher, but I do know lymph glands are often involved in breast cancer diagnoses and — if I were a young woman with big tattoos — I’d be worried. If I also smoked, I’d quit.
It never made sense to me to smoke so, like President Bill Clinton, I never inhaled. And I don’t have tattoos, but it has nothing to do with health concerns. I just always found the human body perfect as it is.
If God had wanted you to have a tattoo, he/she/they would have given you a birthmark.
— Bill Dalton is a former reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and worked for several Michigan newspapers. He spends summers on the family farm near Fennville. His novel “The Bank Game” — a crime thriller — is available from Amazon along with “Dalton’s Bend.”
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