Eek! Hair Dye Causes Breast Cancer!

How many women color their hair? I think most of my friends do. I don’t and I am unusual among the women I know.

But, brace yourselves, the news is now going to be filled with the warning that coloring your hair with anything but natural dyes will cause breast cancer and you will die very quickly. Why? Because a researcher in the UK said so:

“Frequently dying your hair has been linked to an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Professor Mokbel, who works at the Princess Grace Hospital in Marylebone, London, advises that women dye their hair no more than two to five times a year.”
But here is the kicker:

“Although further work is required to confirm our results, our findings suggest that exposure to hair dyes may contribute to breast cancer risk.”

Professor Mokbel has also made clear that the link is merely a correlation: “The positive association between the use of hair dyes and breast cancer risk does not represent evidence of a cause-effect relationship,” he wrote on Facebook.

You need to note the word ‘CORRELATION’ before jumping to any conclusions. And then he opted to clarify more on Twitter (that ever so helpful 140 character way of communicating scientific and political information).

In addition, there was a Finnish study which also found a link between hair dye and breast cancer risk. But that researcher points out more information is needed because maybe women who use hair dye are also more likely to use make up which has some kind of chemical in it which could be more likely to cause breast cancer.

“Sanna Heikkinen from the Finnish Cancer Registry said separate Finnish research found a link between women who use hair dye and likelihood of developing breast cancer.

“It is not possible to confirm a true causal connection,” she said. “It might be, for example, that women who use hair dyes also use other cosmetics more than women who reported never using hair dyes.””

Caroline’s Breast Cancer Blog