Everyone loves to be glammed up now and then and some more often than others. Glamming up often includes a good manicure and pedicure at your local spa. Researchers from the University of California San Diego recently conducted a study on ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting devices that are used to dry gel and acrylic nail art and found out that their use leads to cell death and cancer-causing mutations in human cells.

THE DANGER

The ultraviolet devices used to dry nails may pose more damage than good. Researchers from the University of California San Diego have studied these ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting devices and found that their use leads to cell death and cancer-causing mutations in human cells. In the study, they found that the devices which are common fixtures in nail salons use a particular spectrum of UV light (340-395nm) to cure the chemicals used could pose a danger to health. While tanning beds use a spectrum of UV light(280-400nm) that studies have conclusively proven to be carcinogenic, the spectrum used in nail dryers has not been well studied.

WHAT RESEARCHERS SAY

Ludmil Alexandrov, a professor of bioengineering as well as cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego, and corresponding author of the study published in Nature Communications says, "If you look at the way these devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about.' He adds that they saw multiple things throughout the study."First, we saw that DNA gets damaged. We also saw that some of the DNA damage does not get repaired over time, and it does lead to mutations after every exposure with a UV-nail polish dryer,' he says. "Lastly, we saw that exposure may cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which may also result in additional mutations. We looked at patients with skin cancers, and we see the same patterns of mutations in these patients that were seen in the irradiated cells." Alexandrov conducted the study after reading a magazine article about a young beauty pageant contestant who was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer on her finger. "I thought that was odd,' he says. "I began looking into it and noticed several reports in medical journals saying that people who get gel manicures very frequently, like pageant queens and aestheticians are reporting cases of very rare cancers in the fingers, suggesting that this may be something that causes this type of cancer. And what we saw was that there was zero molecular understanding of what these devices were doing to human cells."

CAUTION

The study also indicates that these UV emitting devices for just one 20-minute session led to between 20 and 30 percent cell deaths, while three consecutive 20-minute exposures caused between 65 and 70 percent of the exposed cells to die. The study shows that the lights also resulted in mutations with patterns that can be observed in skin cancer in humans. The researchers caution that repeated use of these devices on human cells has not been proven as yet to be cancerous. Yet the chronic use of these nail polish drying machines is damaging to human cells.