WASHINGTON — Nowadays, tattoos are about as American as baseball and apple pie. In fact, according to CBS, surveys say approximately 20 percent of adults in the United States have at least one tattoo.

But beneath the ink may comes a hidden danger. A new study found that 6 percent of New York City residents with tattoos suffer from health complications, including rashes, swelling and itching.

Among study participants who suffered complications, those symptoms lasted for at least four months, and in some cases, more than a year.

Dr. Marie Leger assistant professor at the NYU Langone Medical Center authored the study and found many of her findings surprising.

“We were rather alarmed at the high rate of reported chronic complications tied to getting a tattoo,” Dr. Marie Leger, lead researcher on the study, tells CBS.

She says roughly 10 percent of the 300 study participants had tattoo some sort of complication.

“A lot of the things that we are seeing don’t have to do with sterility, or anything like that,” Leger said. “They have more to do with the components in the ink and people’s bodies’ reactions to them.”

Red and black ink triggered most of the complications — the two colors are the most commonly used to create tattoos.

“It is not yet known if the reactions being observed are due to chemicals in the ink itself or to other chemicals, such as preservatives or brighteners, added to them, or to the chemicals’ breakdown over time,” Leger tells CBS.

Leger recommends anti-inflammatory steroids for mild reactions and laser surgery for more severe reactions.