“Are Tattoos a Risk Factor For Skin Cancer and Lymphomas?” an interview with Signe Bedsted Clemmensen, PhD

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May 30, 2025 posted YouTube


Tattoos, Skin Cancer & Lymphoma Risk an Interview with Dr. Signe B. Clemmensen “…In conclusion, our study suggests an increased hazard of lymphoma and skin cancers among tattooed individuals…”
…And A Simple Real Life Teaching Example of How To Avoid Ultra-Processed Foods to reduce not just cancer risk but all chronic diseases…”Shop on the perimeter of the grocery store.”“Are Tattoos a Risk Factor For Skin Cancer and Other Cancers?” an interview with Signe Bedsted Clemmensen, PhD, Assistant Professor, The Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M. www.sdu.dk, sbclemmensen@health.sdu.dk.

Tattoo ink exposure is associated with lymphoma and skin cancers – a Danish study of twins. “…In conclusion, our study suggests an increased hazard of lymphoma and skin cancers among tattooed individuals, demonstrated through two designs: a twin cohort and a case-cotwin study. We are concerned that tattoo ink interacting with surrounding cells may have severe consequences. Studies that pinpoint the etiological pathway of tattoo ink induced carcinogenesis are recommended to benefit public health…” BMC Public Health. 2025 Jan 15;25(1):170.

Kirk’s Comments: In integrative medicine we always look at the total environmental load of the patient which wholistically includes prenatal exposure, diet, environment (mold, allergens, chemicals, metals, EMFs, etc.), physical environment and mental stress. My goal when seeing a patient is to reduce or fix as many “loose spokes” in a person’s “wheel of health” as possible. If the patient can “fix” or tighten “5 or 6” of those “loose spokes” then sometimes with time a tightening of other “loose spokes” of metabolic health fix themselves and the whole person’s wellness improves. Some of the reasons this study caught my attention were:
1) Tattoo shops are everywhere and my “ballpark guess” it seems like more than half of the adults I know have at least one tattoo (don’t hold me to that “guessed-da-fact”.
2) Ink seems to me an obvious toxin, whether it is organic, deemed “non-toxic” or at the other end a known carcinogen or toxin.
3) It is a totally voluntary risk applied to oneself in a world where many risk factors that effect are health seem out of our individual control.
4) Lymphomas might logically be at an increased risk of occurring in tattooed individuals because the ink goes through the skin and gets “filtered” through and concentrated in our lymphatic system first.
5) Ink might set up an inflammatory situation that over time might lead to cancer and other conditions.
6) I am not sure why but the first “picture that popped into my mind” when I started to read this article was prisoners in high security prisons with tattoos over the heads, necks, arms and torso and wondered if the load of ink might in someway affect behavior.
7) So for me adding one more thing to my total load such as ink from a tattoo isn’t something I would choose to do. At least not right now. And I doubt that I would recommend tattooing to my patients while they are trying to get well from an illness or who have ongoing problems with their health, especially immune systems that are challenged…or any of my grand children.

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Other Thoughts Provoked By This Study and Interview…
Vitamin D Levels, Diet Surveys of Fruit and Vegetables, Whole Foods and Ultra-Processed Foods and Compare Cancer/Lymphoma Incidence in Those Tattooed?
In my discussion with Dr. Clemmensen it was not surprising to me that being tattooed increased one’s risk of getting lymphoma and skin cancers; the larger the tattoo the greater probability of cancer; and there were be more lymphomas because that is the body’s natural filtering system for the skin. But thoughts popped into my mind while listening. I wondered what the vitamin D levels were of those tattooed who got cancer compared to those who did not? Because vitamin D is so important to the immune system and it would be relatively easy to have people take vitamin D on a daily or weekly basis in a socialized medicine situation such as Denmark and then be able to follow that one simple vitamin blood level. Classic vitamin D insufficiency is < 30 ng/ml of 25 hydroxy vitamin D3. Most integrative and preventive medicine physicians I know try and get the level > 50 ng/ml and < 100 ng/ml with 50-75 ng/ml being a frequent target. This is usually accomplished in an adult between 5000-10,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily. I can tell you even in “sunny” California many people are below the <30 ng/ml mark for many reasons (working indoors, sunscreens, lack of food sources like fish and/or vitamin D supplementation).

Dr. Clemmensen said understandably the trials that need blood sampling are much more expensive and take longer than those comparing large databases of those who got the cancer versus those who did not. So I threw out an idea of just putting in a simple diet survey comparing those tattooed who got cancer to those who did not with just a “Whole Food Survey” or the popular term now “Ultra-Processed Foods”, or even a dietary survey comparing the intake of fruits and vegetables in those tattooed that developed skin cancers/lymphomas compared to those who did not. Interesting there is a dietary survey system for Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs)…”The FDA uses the NOVA classification system to evaluate ultra-processed foods, which is the most commonly used scale in nutrition science for classifying foods by degree of processing. The NOVA system categorizes foods into four groups based on the extent and purpose of industrial processing. It’s important to note that the FDA’s focus is on the level of processing, not necessarily the nutritional content of the food…”
1)Ultra-Processed Foods: Definitions and Policy Issues.
2)Accelerating the Classification of NOVA Food Processing Levels Using a Fine-Tuned Language Model: A Multi-Country Study.

Eating Whole Foods, Avoiding Ultra-Processed Foods Made Simple…
These are some of Kirk’s simplified dietary guideline on how to eat whole foods (or avoid Ultra Processed Foods) to a patient.
Example 1) Imagine you walked into a rural daily or weekly market of a developing country in the town square. There would only be whole food there. You eat fresh foods from the surrounding farms that are mostly vegetables and whole fruit, unprocessed starchy foods (root vegetables, beans, etc.), some raw nuts and small amounts of animal foods.
Example 2) You go to a modern day farmer’s market in a city park or under a freeway – you have to be a bit selective but mostly you get whole foods that you can see and can easily avoid the Ultra-Processed Foods that might be sold at the farmer’s market.
Example 3) Which I think is probably the most realistic and practical for the masses…”Shop on the periphery “outside” of the grocery store – whole fruits and vegetables, beans and whole good starches (yams, sweet potatoes, whole potatoes, root vegetables), nuts and seeds. Then walk to the other side of the store skipping the middle isles of “HIGHLY” ULTRA-PROCESSED FOODS AND OILS and get lean animal foods with minimal dairy products. I have told patients to “shop on the outside of the grocery store” for almost 40 years. I am drifting a bit from the topic of “Tattoos and Skin Cancer/Lymphoma” risk but indirectly I’m not. Whole food diets rich in fruits and vegetables is how we would reduce cancer risk with not only “tattoo ink” exposure but all exposures. Increasing fruit and vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables, which enhance detoxification, and eating lots of whole fiber rich foods (beans, whole starches, whole grains, non-starchy vegetables) creates a healthy microbiome and also helps bind on to toxins so they can be eliminated versus reabsorbed is cancer protective.

…REAL LIFE PRACTICAL “HEALTHY FLASHBACK…” There was a four year period pre-Covid where I flew to Torrance, California weekly and did lifestyle counseling at the Diagnostic and Wellness Center (Now The Farima Czyzyk Center For Cardiac Research and Wellness at the Lundquist Institue – CT SCANNER) and I did a field trip with an Hispanic group to Numero Uno Market (now Superior Grocers) across the street in a strip mall and we walked around the outside (perimeter) of the grocery store pointing out whole foods that were good to eat and how to avoid the middle of the store where the ultraprocessed foods were. Being with the food, in a real life daily setting, just showing the people the foods if eaten 90% of the time could reverse their chronic diseases (i.e. diabetes, obesity, heart disease) was so effective as a teaching tool (and a lot easier for me). Rewarding times! It actuality is that simple to change the health of America (MAHA – Make America Healthy Again scroll down the home page for CD stats) by eating on the outside of the grocery store…We shouldn’t need legislation to “protect us” from eating Ultra-Processed Foods…just common sense and reasonable “vision” to see Whole or the Ultra-Processed Foods in front of us.
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Mind/Body/Spirit Change…

Falun Dafa – Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance
The practice of the most Gandhian-like group I know facing persecution from Communist Party (CCP) in China and abroad, including here in the U.S.A.. They are a main source of live organ harvesting by the CCP in China. (see DAFO; Congress; Bill)

Brief Introduction to Falun Dafa
Books & Recent Writings of Mr. Li Hongzhi
Video & Audio Materials
Take an Online Class

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Kirk Hamilton PA-C
Health Associates Medical Group
3301 Alta Arden, Suite 3
Sacramento, CA 95825
(916) 489-4400 (w)
krhammer@surewest.net
www.StayingHealthyToday.com
www.HealthyLivingforBusypeople.com
www.KwikerMedical.com