It's not news that tattoos are trending these days, but new research has shown that nanoparticles of ink from tattoos also stain other parts of the body, including some important internal organs.
The process of applying a tattoo consists in traumatizing the local skin with the introduction of a coloring pigment into the dermis. During healing, our body performs all the actions that would occur without the presence of paint, therefore, while the skin under the tattoo heals, the excess ink "comes out", mixing with the lymphatic fluid.
Those that did not have time to leave, but went deeper under the skin, remain in the body, settling in the lymphatic system, whose job is to process and filter harmful substances.
What exactly the lymph nodes are filtering in this case is the question. Most inks contain titanium dioxide, iron and carbon oxides, while color inks contain nickel, chromium, manganese or cobalt. On average, the particles of these elements in the paint have sizes from 100 nm to 1 μm.
The researchers tried to determine the exact size of the particles that did not pass filtration by looking at the lymph nodes of four donors. Experts saw that two out of four tattoo lovers had lymph nodes painted in blue and green. The size of the particles, which can be easily filtered out by the lymph, has never been found out, reports Discover Magazine.
The danger of such a deep sedimentation of the pigment is that the lymph nodes begin to chronically enlarge, which leads to infections, inflammation and a deterioration in the body's immune system.
If you feel like getting a tattoo, think carefully about it.
