New study reveals potential link between tattoos and cancer

Artists at Los Plebes Tattoos & Piercings in Cathedral City at are turning bodies into canvases.

“Every tattoo has a meaning,” said owner Lucero Lopez.  “But sometimes you do get some tattoos later on you’re like, ‘hey, why did I get that.’”

Lopez says he loves the stories each tattoo tells externally, like the one of his grandparents at their ranch in Mexico.

Internally, however, medical experts say all his ink could be risk factors for causing cancer.

“Just the fact that it’s such a large proportion of the population that we don’t know anything about the health effect, I think that is a huge problem,” said Christel Nielsen, an epidemiology researcher with Lund University in Sweden.

Nielsen’s team recently released a study suggesting getting a tattoo could increase the risk of developing lymphoma.

“There’s also been studies that show that the ink that is injected into the skin is also moved by the immune system to the lymph nodes,” she said.

As for the artists at Los Plebes, tattoos are permanent parts of their culture.

This news, however, now has them questioning how to best care for their canvases.

This story was written and reported by Kai Beech.