Consumers should avoid all hair products that contain the chemical glyoxylic acid, a top doctor warned this week, after a 17-year-old girl who underwent a hair-straightening treatment was hospitalized with severe kidney failure at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, the second such case in Israel in a little over a month.

Prof. Linda Shavit, director of the Adult Nephrology Institute at the hospital, told The Times of Israel that since 2023, there have been at least 38 cases of women and girls who have suffered acute kidney failure after straightening their hair with the chemical. All were hospitalized, and several required dialysis treatments.

“There’s still danger going from curly hair to straight,” she said. “It is a chemical process.”

The teen was admitted in late December after suffering from vomiting, dizziness, and severe headaches following the treatment, and spent several days in the hospital before being released on December 29.

She told Shavit that she wouldn’t “do the treatment again,” especially because “it took her a while to recover,” the doctor relayed.

Sales of products containing glyoxylic acid were banned by the Health Ministry in 2023 following a pioneering study by Shavit and Dr. Alon Benaya, also from Shaare Zedek, that found 26 cases of girls and women aged 14 to 58 with no underlying medical conditions who arrived at emergency departments across the country with severe kidney failure.

The study, which appeared in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, was the first in the world to document numerous cases of kidney failure following hair straightening treatments.

Since Shavit’s study, health........

© The Times of Israel