• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

UV Nail Polish Dryers Can Damage The DNA In Your Hands

December 30, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

Ultraviolet (UV) nail polish dryers, typically used to cure gel manicures, could damage DNA in our hands and cause mutations, new research finds. 

The dryers are a common fixture of beauty salons – but despite their widespread use and the fact that some spectrums of UV rays are known to be carcinogenic, there has never been formal research into the effect of the radiation they emit on mammalian cells.

Advertisement

Unlike tanning beds, which use a different spectrum of UV light (280-400nm) and have been proven to cause cancer, nail polish drying devices (340-395nm) have barely been studied.

“If you look at the way these devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about,” corresponding author Ludmil Alexandrov, a professor of bioengineering as well as cellular and molecular medicine, said in a statement. “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.”

After exposing both human and mouse cells – adult human skin keratinocytes, human foreskin fibroblasts, and mouse embryonic fibroblasts – to the UV emitted from nail polish drying devices, the researchers identified mitochondrial and DNA damage as well as cell death.

Just 20 minutes under the lights, followed by an hour out to repair damage and a further 20-minute exposure, resulted in 20 to 30 percent of the cells dying. Meanwhile, 20-minute sessions every day for three consecutive days led to between 65 and 70 percent cell death.

Advertisement

Typically, one manicure session involves nails and hands being placed in the UV device for 10 minutes in total, much less than the exposure used in the study.

The damage seen in the remaining cells was not always repaired, which caused mutations comparable to those seen in human skin cancers. According to Alexandrov, there have also been some reports of rare finger cancers in people who regularly get gel manicures, such as pageant contestants and estheticians.

While concerning, it’s important to note that the study doesn’t provide direct evidence that UV nail polish drying devices increase cancer risk. There is also no way of knowing how frequently someone would need to get their nails done to be at risk of harm. A long-term epidemiological study is needed before any such questions can be answered.

“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 study authors write. 

Advertisement

“Nevertheless, future large-scale epidemiological studies are warranted to accurately quantify the risk for skin cancer of the hand in people regularly using UV-nail polish dryers. It is likely that such studies will take at least a decade to complete and to subsequently inform the general public.”

The study is published in Nature Communications.

An earlier version of this article was published in January 2023.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-NZ players reach Dubai after ‘specific, credible threat’ derailed Pakistan tour
  2. Vatican trial prosecutors concede case gaps, willing to investigate more
  3. This Italian McDonald’s Has Something Unique Inside – A Roman Road And Three Skeletons
  4. NASA Is Waiting For A Special Delivery – From Deep Space!

Source Link: UV Nail Polish Dryers Can Damage The DNA In Your Hands

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • What Happened When A New Zealand Man Fell Butt-First Onto A Powerful Air Hose
  • Ancient DNA Confirms Women’s Unexpected Status In One Of The Oldest Known Neolithic Settlements
  • Earth’s Weather Satellites Catch Cloud Changes… On Venus
  • Scientists Find Common Factors In People Who Have “Out-Of-Body” Experiences
  • Shocking Photos Reveal Extent Of Overfishing’s Impact On “Shrinking” Cod
  • Direct Fusion Drive Could Take Us To Sedna During Its Closest Approach In 11,000 Years
  • Earth’s Energy Imbalance Is More Than Double What It Should Be – And We Don’t Know Why
  • We May Have Misjudged A Fundamental Fact About The Cambrian Explosion
  • The Shoebill Is A Bird So Bizarre That Some People Don’t Even Believe It’s Real
  • Colossal’s “Dire Wolves” Are Now 6 Months Old – And They’ve Doubled In Size
  • How To Fake A Fossil: Find Out More In Issue 36 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
  • Is It True Earth Used To Take 420 Days To Orbit The Sun?
  • One Of The Ocean’s “Most Valuable Habitats” Grows The Only Flowers Known To Bloom In Seawater
  • World’s Largest Digital Camera Snaps 2,104 New Asteroids In 10 Hours, Mice With 2 Dads Father Their Own Offspring, And Much More This Week
  • Simplest Explanation For “Anomalous” Signals Coming From Underneath Antarctica Ruled Out
  • “Lizard Shampoo” And Pagan Texts Suggest “Dark Age” Medicine Wasn’t So Dark After All
  • Japanese Macaques May Mourn Their Dead – As Long As They’re Not Maggot-Infested
  • This Is What You’d Hear If You Listened To Voyager’s Golden Record NASA Sent To Interstellar Space
  • RFK Jr’s New Vaccine Advisors Just Recommended Fall Flu Vaccines – But There’s A Catch
  • Controversial World-First Project To Create Human DNA From Scratch Takes First Steps
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version