Recent medical research has shown the existence of invisible effects of tattoo pigments on the body.
The study revealed that tattoo inks are not limited to the skin but also move and accumulate in the adjacent lymph nodes, which may sometimes lead to damage or death of some lymphocytes.
Tattoo Risks
Researchers tracked this process during the first minutes and hours following tattooing and observed the ink rapidly moving to the lymph nodes and accumulating in cell filtration areas.
Over time, the amount of ink in the lymph nodes did not decrease but sometimes increased, indicating a continuous flow of ink towards these nodes for extended periods.
The researchers stated:
- The effect of tattoos on the effectiveness of vaccines when the injection is given in a tattooed area.
- The results showed a difference in immune response depending on the type of vaccine: after the COVID-19 vaccine using mRNA technology, antibody production decreased, while after the influenza vaccine, its production increased, which is attributed to the different mechanism of action of the vaccines and the effect of local inflammation resulting from the tattoo.
- These results, derived from animal experiments, cannot be directly generalized to humans, but they illustrate that tattooing is not just a local procedure, but may affect the function of the immune system in the lymph nodes, which calls for avoiding injecting vaccines directly into the tattoo area until the effect of the ink on the immune response is better understood.
