A new study published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that drinking coffee could reduce the risk of developing melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, by as much as 20 percent.
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health and the Yale School of Public Health found that the more coffee people drank, the lower their melanoma risk.
The research team assessed data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, which included 447,357 non-Latino white participants who were cancer-free at the start of the study.
The participants completed a food frequency questionnaire at the beginning of the study, including their coffee intake. The incidence of melanoma among those being studied was tracked over an average of 10.5 years.
Over this period, 2,905 test subjects developed melanoma, which is the fifth most common cancer and the leading cause of skin cancer deaths in the US.
The study found that the more coffee participants drank each day, the less likely they were to be at risk. Drinking four cups a day was associated with a 20 percent lower risk. The results remained consistent regardless of participants’ age, sex, body mass index, alcohol intake, smoking history and even ultraviolet radiation exposure, a primary risk factor for skin cancer.
The association was only found among participants who consumed caffeinated coffee, not decaffeinated. Coffee also only appeared to reduce the risk of malignant melanoma, not melanoma in situ, which is an early form of the disease (the melanoma cells have not spread beyond the outer cells of the skin).
“This may indicate different disease etiologies, or an inhibitory role of coffee consumption in disease progression,” said the researchers.
So how does coffee reduce the risk? According to the study, bioactive compounds in coffee suppress UVB-induced skin cancer by protecting against oxidative stress and DNA damage in cells, and by reducing inflammation in epidermal cells. Caffeine, taken both orally and applied topically, also has been shown to absorb UV rays, “functioning as a sunscreen,” researchers said.
Though it’s a “modest” decrease in melanoma risk, researchers argue that “lifestyle modifications with even modest protective effects may have a meaningful impact on melanoma morbidity.”
Of course, “the most important thing that individuals do to reduce their risk of melanoma is to reduce sun and UV radiation exposure,” experts stressed.
Today, more than half of adults in the US drink an average of 3.1 cups of coffee every single day.
Numerous health benefits have been associated with coffee consumption, including a lower risk of death from certain kinds of cancer, reduced risk of liver disease, lower risk of type 2 diabetes, a reduced risk of tinnitus, and a lower overall risk of death.
(With reports from Los Angeles Times)