"... Hard evidence has emerged that nano-sized particles from tattoo inks travel from the skin where they’re embedded to a person’s lymph nodes, where they get stuck.
Tattoo inks contain a wide range of chemicals and heavy metals, including some that are potentially toxic. Because of concerns about this potential toxicity, last year, the Joint Research Centre, which provides advice to the European Commission, issued a report highlighting the need for funding into research on tattoo ink toxicity and how tattoo inks break down in the body.
Plenty of circumstantial evidence exists to show that tattoo pigments travel around the body, says Ines Schreiver, a researcher at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin. “Physicians had seen that lymph tissue of tattooed people was colored,” she explains, but details about the pigments in the lymph nodes, which act as filters for the human body and are an important part of the immune system, are scarce.
With skin and lymph tissue samples from four deceased tattooed individuals, as well as two nontattooed individuals, in hand, Schreiver and her colleagues set out to investigate. Using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI/TOFMS), the team found the same organic pigments, including pthalocyanines and azo compounds, in the skin and lymph samples from the tattooed individuals (Sci. Rep. 2017, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-11721-z). “This is hard proof that what you find in the lymph is from the tattoos,” Schreiver says.
Using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), the researchers detected higher levels of certain inorganic elements in both the skin and lymph nodes of the tattooed subjects compared with those without tattoos. Those elements included titanium, aluminum, chromium, nickel, and other metals. Some of these elements, which tattoo inks contain as preservatives or contaminants, are known to be toxic.
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There is a chance tht removal is even worse.
From the comments:
Robin Cywar (September 27, 2017 2:01 PM)
It would be interesting to see what content patients who undergo laser removal have in their lymph nodes, since the procedure breaks up the cells containing the pigment and sends them into the body/blood stream.
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I wonder what percentage of vegans/vegetarians get tattooed?
A sample size of 4 and two controls is hard evidence?
"highlighting the need for funding into research on tattoo ink toxicity and how tattoo inks break down in the body." Yes, the mandatory statement that must be in all scientific papers--send us more money.
