Rose Rimler

And it turns out that they're also bringing that ink to the lymph nodes.

And scientists have also seen this in people.

We've had case studies documenting it, like if someone with tattoos goes in to get their lymph node biopsied for whatever reason, pathologists will sometimes find ink in the lymph node.

And Santiago's team also found this when they looked at lymph nodes from people, which led him to conclude... When you are tattooing your skin, you are also tattooing your lymph nodes.

Well...

It's possible.

I mean, if the lymph node is involved, that means the immune system is involved in some way.

So Santiago's team also checked levels of immune markers in the mice's bodies to see if they were elevated.

That would suggest that they were stressed out, basically.

These are molecules that are part of the body's stress response to injuries or illness.

And he did find that these molecules increased in both the lymph taken from the lymph node and in the mice's blood.

But most of that activation went back to normal after a week or so from getting the tattoo, which makes sense.

Like, of course, you'd have a temporary inflammatory response to a bunch of needles in your skin.

But there was one exception, a molecule associated with chronic inflammation called

It's actually called Alarmin.

Great.

Yeah.

What was the Alarmin doing, Rose?

It was alarmed.

It was raised even two months post-tattooing, which Santiago argues should have been past the initial healing phase of the tattoo.