I for one love dying my hair. I’ve had my hair all different sorts of colors from purple and pink streaks, to blonde highlights, and to super dark brown. I just dyed my hair last week to a nice dark brown color and then I started to wonder, can excessively dying my hair cause more damage for my body besides the inevitable hair damage? There has been some speculation about whether the use of hair dyes causes cancer. How can this be? It seems like the two are completely unrelated, However, there is a correlation between the use of hair dyes and cancer. 

One problem that arises from using hair dyes it the aromatic amines. The same chemicals that are used in permanent hair dyes are also found in environmental pollution, tobacco smoke, and in different types of meat and fish. How were scientists able to test this hypothesis? Several large case-control and cohort studies could not find a cause between hair dyes and bladder cancer. However, one group of scientists used a method of a study group.

To figure out the cause between hair dye and bladder cancer, the authors used data from 459 bladder cancer cases and 665 controls who were interviewed as part of a case-control study in New Hampshire from 1994-1998. Participants went through a personal interview regarding their history of hair dye use and bladder cancer risk factors. Questions in the interview covered education level, use of tobacco, and medical history prior to their diagnosis date. Participants were also asked about their lifetime use of hair dyes including; the type of dye use, years of use, and how often they dyed their hair per year.

With this research, it was discovered that women who used hair dyes before the age of 37 or have been using hair dyes for 31 years before their diagnosis had more than a 2-fold risk of bladder cancer compared to women who never used hair dye.

Although, one experiment saw that there was no causation between hair dye use and breast cancer. In New York City, a case-control study was conducted to see if hair dye can cause breast cancer.  The study group consisted of 398 breast cancer cases and 790 randomly selected controls. Subjects were interviewed and asked about their complete history of hair dye use including; type of dye, color, duration, and frequency. 77% of subjects had used hair dye at least once, 38% of the subjects had used it at least 100 times. However, little increased risk of breast cancer was found among hair dye users. There was no evidence of a trend in risk with increasing number of hair dye uses. Breast cancer risk did not increase with increasing intensity of exposure, no effect was seen for different types or colors of dye, or use during different periods of reproductive life.

It seems that the use of hair dye causing certain types of cancer has some controversy in the scientific community. Based on some of the information provided what do you guys think? Should people stop using hair dyes? Does dying hair really create a potential risk for cancer?