A chemical used in hair straighteners sold online could cause kidney failure, doctors warn, after a woman who regularly styled her hair suffered damage to her organs.
The woman, who was not named, also felt nauseous and suffered vomiting, diarrhea, fever and back pain just after regularly using glyoxylic acid products.
He had no health problems before the treatments, but said he also felt a burning sensation on his scalp whenever the chemicals were applied.
Doctors warned that glyoxylic acid and its derivatives, such as glycolic acid, popular in “Brazilian” and “formaldehyde-free” hair straightening treatments, could leach through the skin into the blood and travel to internal organs.
Once there, they could form crystals, doctors suggested, which can prevent the kidneys from working properly.
Chemical straighteners, typically marketed to black women, break down protein bonds in curly hair using chemicals that alter the body’s hormonal balance, leaving hair permanently straight (file image)
Pictured above is a hair straightening product containing glyoxylic acid for sale on Amazon.
In the case, revealed in the New England Journal of MedicineThe woman went for treatments three times at the same salon in June 2020, April 2021 and July 2022.
The same day after each treatment he was diagnosed with acute kidney injury, which is a sudden loss of kidney function when they stop filtering water and waste products from the blood.
Hospital tests showed that levels of creatinine (a waste product) in his blood increased to twice their normal values.
It was unclear how she was treated, but this may have included intravenous fluids and dialysis, or being hooked up to a machine to filter her blood.
The woman, from Tunisia, had used a cream containing ten percent glyoxylic acid.
Doctors suggested that glyoxylic acid damaged the kidneys because it broke down inside the organs into “elongated” crystals that formed stones and prevented the organs from functioning properly.
Glyoxylic acid works by temporarily altering the structure of the hair, allowing hairstylists to change frizzy hair to straight.
Shown here is another hair straightening product that contains glyoxylic acid.
And a third product available on Amazon that also contains the chemical
The revelation comes amid three lawsuits against L’Oréal over its hair straightening cream, which the women say gave them cancer.
Among them is Jennifer Mitchell, 32, of Missouri, who said she had been using chemicals to straighten her hair since she was in third grade in 2000.
But in 2018, the woman said she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and had to undergo a hysterectomy, which deprived her of the opportunity to have children.
About 60 percent of women who use hair straighteners in the United States are black and rely on the products to dismantle their natural frizzy hair.
For the study, doctors also conducted an experiment with ten mice to investigate the risks of glyoxylic acid.
The mice were divided into two groups: half had the acid rubbed on their backs, while the rest were given Vaseline as a placebo.
Tests showed that mice treated with the chemical had “elongated” crystals in their urine, unlike mice that did not receive it.
They said the crystals resembled those seen in people who had ingested the toxic alcohol ethylene glycol, which is found in many industrial products such as antifreeze.
These mice also had “significantly” higher levels of the waste product creatinine in their blood 28 hours after having the cream rubbed on their backs.
The FDA has not banned these chemicals, but says previous studies have linked them to increased sensitivity to sunlight.
They do not mention whether the chemicals, which are regulated as cosmetics, can cause kidney damage.
The French study comes after an independent paper published last year found that 26 Israeli women suffered kidney failure after using chemical hair straighteners.
The patients, who had been registered since 2019, had been hospitalized for their condition and also suffered from headaches, vomiting and difficulty breathing.
They included a 13-year-old girl, a woman who was 15 weeks pregnant and a 42-year-old woman.
Dr. Meital Keidar, a nephrologist who led the study, saying: ‘Every woman I’ve ever treated would say they wouldn’t wish this trauma on anyone.
“Women should not have to pay that price for a cosmetic treatment.”