Does hair dye cause cancer?
This page has information on hair dye and risk of cancer. You can go straight to sections on
In most cases we don’t know what causes cancer. There are usually many factors involved. Most cancers have many causes working together. So, you can’t usually pin it down to any single cause. We do know about some risk factors, though. A risk factor is something that may increase someone's risk of developing a particular type of cancer.
Using hair dye has been suggested as a possible risk factor for a few types of cancer.
In 2008, the WHO (World Health Organisation) said that there is evidence that hair dyes can increase the risk of bladder cancer for male hairdressers and barbers. This is because they are working with these chemicals all the time. The picture is less clear for people who have their hair dyed or dye their own hair.
Some research has suggested that using hair dye may lead to an increased risk of bladder cancer, while other research has suggested it doesn’t. Some studies have probably been too small to show up any small increase in risk. In the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) May 2005, a large meta analysis was published that looked into all the research on hair dyes causing cancer. This found that there is unlikely to be any link between dyeing your hair and bladder cancer.
Blood cell cancers include lymphomas, leukaemia and myeloma. There is no definite evidence of a link between the use of any type of hair dye and non Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), leukaemia or myeloma. Some studies have shown a slight possible increase in risk and other studies have found no link. The meta analysis of all these studies, published in the JAMA in May 2005, found that there may be a small link between hair dye use and myeloma, lymphoma or some types of lymphoblastic leukaemia. But the results of this paper show that if there is any increase in risk, it must be extremely small.
A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2004, focusing only on non Hodgkin's lymphoma, suggests that long term use of dark hair dye may slightly increase your risk of developing non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. But the researchers say these findings don’t prove that colouring your hair causes cancer. The study points out that there could be an increase in risk for people who used hair dyes before 1980. A lot of hair dyes made before 1980 contained chemicals that were known to cause cancer in mice. Since 1980, hair dyes have changed dramatically and many no longer contain these cancer causing chemicals (carcinogens).
There is information about the risks and causes of myeloma and risks and causes of non Hodgkin's lymphoma on CancerHelp UK.
There is information about reducing your risk of cancer in the causes and symptoms section of CancerHelp UK. It is far more likely that concentrating on your diet, smoking, drinking and exercise habits will reduce your risk of cancer more effectively than changing your use of cosmetics.
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