Abstract 5816: Serum metabolomic profile of exposure to hair dye

Abstract Hair dye products now represent one of the most rapidly growing beauty and personal care industries. The association between hair dye use and the development of cancer has been a research focus, including for breast, prostate, and bladder cancer, yet biological mechanisms have not been established. In this first examination of metabolomic response to hair dye exposure, we compared the serum metabolite profiles of male hair dye users and nonusers to identify differences related to biological mechanisms relevant to how exposure may influence cancer risk. The Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention (ATBC) Study was a randomized, controlled cancer prevention trial of vitamin supplementation that enrolled 50–69-year-old Finnish male smokers of whom 75 hair dye users and 125 nonusers were studied. Ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was used to assay baseline serum samples, and the difference in log-transformed, batch-normalized metabolite signals between the exposed and unexposed men was estimated using linear regression, adjusting for age, body mass index, and smoking. We measured 1,401 metabolites, of which 11 compounds, including 4 amino acids and 3 xenobiotics, differed significantly between the two groups after correction for multiple comparisons (FDR<0.1). Redox-related glutathione metabolism was heavily represented, including cysteineglutathione disulfide which showed the strongest association with hair dye use (effect size (β) = -0.685; p<0.0001), along with oxidized cysteine-glycine (β = -0.325; p<0.0001) and several compounds relevant to antioxidation/ROS pathways. Metabolites previously associated with prostate cancer risk also differed significantly between hair dye user and non-users. Our findings point to biological mechanisms through which exposure to hair dyes may impact risk of prostate and other cancers. Citation Format: Jungeun Lim, Jiaqi Huang, Stephanie J. Weinstein, Demetrius Albanes. Serum metabolomic profile of exposure to hair dye [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 5816.