(epharmanews) – Researchers have found that caffeinated coffee significantly reduces the risk to develop basal cell carcinoma – the most common type of skin cancer.
In this study, published in Cancer Research, researchers analyzed data from two wide scale longitudinal studies the first of which focused on factors that affect women’s health, while the other one focused on men. They analyzed data from 112897 participants 22786 of them experienced basal cell cancer during more than 20 years of follow up.
The results suggest an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and the risk to develop basal cell carcinoma. “Our data indicate that the more caffeinated coffee you consume, the lower your risk of developing basal cell carcinoma,” explained Jiali Han, Ph.D., associate professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston and Harvard School of Public Health.
“I would not recommend increasing your coffee intake based on these data alone,” said Han. “However, our results add basal cell carcinoma to a list of conditions for which risk is decreased with increasing coffee consumption. This list includes conditions with serious negative health consequences such as type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.”
Researchers also found that the less common and more deadly skin cancer types were not affected by increased coffee consumption.
Moreover, caffeine intake regardless of the source (whether coffee, tea, cola or chocolate) was also associated with a reduced risk of basal cell cancer. Decaffeinated coffee, however, did not have the same effects.
“These results really suggest that it is the caffeine in coffee that is responsible for the decreased risk of basal cell carcinoma associated with increasing coffee consumption,” said Han. “This would be consistent with published mouse data, which indicate caffeine can block skin tumor formation. However, more studies in different population cohorts and additional mechanistic studies will be needed before we can say this definitively.”
Basal cell cancer is the most common form of skin cancer in the United States and although it is slow growing, it causes considerable morbidity and places a burden on health care systems.
“Given the large number of newly diagnosed cases, daily dietary changes having any protective effect may have an impact on public health,” concluded Han.
