Lamps for drying and curing nail polish, for permanent or semi-permanent manicures, are said to be bad for your health because ultraviolet (UV) light damages DNA, causes cell death and carcinogenic mutations.
- UV lamps for drying varnish can be found in beauty salons but are also sold to individuals.
- Mitochondria are essential organelles for the functioning of cells.
- The authors estimate that studies to precisely quantify the risk of these lamps and inform the general public should take at least a decade.
Lamps for drying gel polish are very successful and widely used, but their impact on health has never been studied until now. There are indeed manicure techniques that last longer than a classic varnish: it is the semi-permanent varnish (mixture of classic and gel varnish) and the permanent varnish, in the form of a gel. These are not used like conventional varnish which is left to dry in the open air.
UV lamps damage DNA
For both of these methods, it is necessary to use a lamp that emits ultraviolet (UV) light to harden the nails. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego in the United States, wanted to study the impact of these UV rays on health, especially for people who use them regularly. Their study has just been published in the journal NatureCommunications.
“We observed several things: first, that the DNA was damagedexplains Ludmil Alexandrov, one of the authors, in a communicated. We also found that some DNA damage does not repair over time and leads to mutations [supplémentaires] after each exposure. Finally, we found that exposure can cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which can also lead to further mutation. We looked at patients with skin cancers and we saw exactly the same patterns of mutations in those patients.”
Cancer: 30% cell death with a 20-minute session
To arrive at their results, the scientists performed experiments on cells from humans and mice. Thus, they observed that a 20-minute session with a UV lamp to harden the nails led to the death of 30% of the cells. This percentage increased to 65 or even 70% after three consecutive sessions of 20 minutes.
“Our experimental results and previous evidence strongly suggest that radiation emitted by UV lamps can cause hand cancers and that UV lamps, similar to tanning booths, may increase the risk of hand cancer. early onset skin”, write the researchers.
They plead for future studies to be carried out in order to better quantify and analyze the risk taken by people who regularly use these devices… Both customers of nail salons and their employees.
