Tunis, Tunisia – Medical experts are issuing a warning about the potential dangers of certain hair treatments after a young woman experienced kidney injuries following a visit to a salon. A 26-year-old woman from Tunisia suffered from three acute kidney injuries between June 2020 and July 2022. This information was revealed in a recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine. French doctors authored a letter to the editor, linking specific hair smoothing and straightening products to kidney damage.
The woman in question had no prior health problems before seeking medical assistance. She presented symptoms of vomiting, fever, diarrhea, and back pain upon visiting the doctor. Each episode of acute kidney injury coincided with a hair treatment session at the same salon, starting the day the symptoms appeared, according to the journal letter.
During the examination, medical professionals discovered elevated plasma creatinine levels in her blood. Creatinine is a byproduct that originates from muscles and is usually filtered out by the kidneys when it enters the bloodstream. The culprit seems to be the cream containing 10% glyoxylic acid that was applied to the woman’s hair during each salon visit, leading researchers to believe this chemical was responsible for the kidney damage.
The letter emphasized that hair-straightening creams containing glyoxylic acid may cause calcium oxalate-induced nephropathy following similar hair procedures. This acid was fairly recent in hair-straightening products as a safer alternative to formulations with formaldehyde. The case mentioned in the New England Journal of Medicine also referred to 26 patients in Israel who suffered acute kidney injuries after Brazilian-style hair-straightening procedures.
In 2022, a study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggested a potential link between chemical hair-straightening products and an increased risk of uterine cancer in women. The research highlighted the presence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in these products. As a precaution, the article recommended avoiding products with topical glyoxylic acid and proposed removing these items from the market altogether.
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