UV Nail Polish Dryers May Increase Risk of Cancer, Study Suggests
If you regularly visit salons to get your nails done, you may want to take some precautions.
A group of researchers from the University of California San Diego found that ultraviolet (UV) nail polish dryers, which are used to cure gel manicures, can mutate the DNA in human skin and possibly increase the risk of cancer. The study was published on 17 January in Nature Communications.
In the tests the researchers conducted, they found that a single 20-minute session of exposure to the rays emitted by the UV devices resulted in as many as 30% of human and mouse cells in a petri dish dying. The same 20-minute session every day for three straight days led to about 65% to 70% of cells dying.
Normally, however, a manicure session in the salon, where the customer's hands and nails are placed in the UV device, only lasts for about 10 minutes, not 20 minutes.
The cells that remain, meanwhile, show signs of mitochondrial and DNA damage, along with mutations seen in patients with skin cancer.
"Our experimental results and the prior evidence strongly suggest that radiation emitted by UV-nail polish dryers may cause cancers of the hand and that UV-nail polish dryers, similar to tanning beds, may increase the risk of early-onset skin cancer,” the researchers wrote.
They don't want to conclusively say the radiation from UV nail polish dryers is carcinogenic just yet, not until more studies are done about the subject, which, from their estimates, could take up to a decade.
It’s long been suggested that UV exposure increases the risk of cancer, though studies have been limited to tanning beds and similar applications. There’s never been any formal research done on UV nail polish dryers, which are now widely used in salons.
“If you look at the way these devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about,” said Ludmil Alexandrov, a corresponding author of the study. “But to the best of our knowledge, no one has actually studied these devices and how they affect human cells at the molecular and cellular levels until now.”
The researchers noted that they decided to study UV nail polish dryers after learning about a beauty pageant contestant who was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer.
A group of researchers found that ultraviolet (UV) nail polish dryers, which are used to cure gel manicures, can mutate the DNA in human skin and possibly increase the risk of cancer.
In the tests the researchers conducted, they found that a single 20-minute session of exposure to the rays emitted by the UV devices resulted in as many as 30% of human and mouse cells in a petri dish dying.
The cells that remain, meanwhile, show signs of mitochondrial and DNA damage, along with mutations seen in patients with skin cancer.