Bad news blondes
Filed under: Hair Care, Celebrities with Style
Blonds may have more fun, but do they have more health problems? Well, if they aren't naturally blond -- and who among them is -- the answer is that they might.In the New York Times Thursday Styles section, Natasha Singer addressed the recent report in the American Journal of Epidemiology which linked hair dye to an increased risk for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (in Larry David speak, "the bad lymphoma"). Singer's piece tends to wind back and forth between suggesting that "Yes, hair dye is dangerous" and "No, hair dye is safe".
But I can appreciate the way she meanders. After all, weighing risk against benefit is not an easy thing to do. When you consider that the risk factor for developing lymphoma is fairly low (1.19 times more likely), it's hard to say that coloring your hair is a significant threat to your health. Smoking, for instance, makes you 10 to 60 times more likely to get lung cancer. Put in perspective, coloring your hair doesn't exactly seem like risky behavior.
Pulling a Jessica Simpson and dyeing your locks from brown to blond to Cheeto's orange, on the other hand, is definitely risky behavior.
