Researchers suggest caffeine might mitigate sun damage
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Jan. 20, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Your morning coffee might do more than perk you up. Researchers suggest it also might help protect you against melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Coffee drinkers are less likely to suffer from malignant melanoma, and their risk decreases somewhat with every cup they swallow, according to findings published Jan. 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
"We found that four or more cups of coffee per day was associated with about a 20 percent reduced risk of malignant melanoma," said lead author Erikka Loftfield, a doctoral student at Yale University School of Public Health who is completing her dissertation work at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
Previous research has shown that coffee drinking could protect against less deadly forms of skin cancer, apparently by mitigating the damage to skin cells caused by the sun's ultraviolet rays, the researchers said in background notes.
They decided to see if this protection extended to melanoma, the leading cause of skin cancer death in the United States and the fifth most common cancer. In 2013, there were an estimated 77,000 new cases of melanoma and about 9,500 deaths from the cancer, according to the study.
The researchers gathered data from a study run by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and AARP. A food questionnaire was sent to 3.5 million AARP members living in six states: California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania; as well as two cities, Atlanta and Detroit.
The questionnaire yielded coffee drinking info for nearly 447,400 white seniors in 1995 and 1996, and researchers followed up with the participants for about 10 years on average.
All participants were cancer-free when they filled out the questionnaire, and the researchers adjusted for other factors that could influence melanoma risk. These included ultraviolet radiation exposure, body mass index, age, sex, physical activity, alcohol intake and smoking history.
They found that people who drank the most coffee every day enjoyed a lower risk of melanoma, compared with those who drank little to no coffee.
source : Can Coffee Protect You From Melanoma?
