A new study shows that drinking coffee may reduce the risk of developing skin cancer. The study was conducted by a team of researchers who work at the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health and the Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Erikka Loftfield, one of the scientists involved in the study, wanted to see if drinking coffee regularly could lower the risk of developing the deadliest form of skin cancer, melanoma.
According to the scientists, previous studies have shown that drinking coffee on a regular basis can protect against other forms of skin cancers that are not melanoma.
In order to find out the effects of coffee consumption on the melanoma, researchers gathered data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, which involved 447,357 non-Hispanic white people who did not have cancer at the beginning of the study.
The participants had to fill in a questionnaire, saying how much coffee they consumed every day. The participants were monitored over a period of 10 and a half years. During this period, 2,905 of those who participated in the study had developed melanoma skin cancer.
The scientists discovered that the more coffee the participants drank each day, the risk of developing melanoma were lower. For example, the researchers found that those who drank four cups of coffee daily had a 20% lower risk of developing melanoma.
The results were the same even after the scientists accounted for the participants’ age, sex, body mass index, smoking history, alcohol intake and exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The UV radiation is one of the main risk factors for skin cancer.
The study also showed that those who had a lower risk of developing melanoma were those who consumed caffeinated coffee, not decaf. The scientists explained that drinking coffee could reduce the risk of malignant melanoma, not melanoma in situ, which means that the melanoma cells have yet to spread beyond the outer skin cells.
According to recent reports, more than half Americans drink 3.1 cups of coffee per day.
The recent study showing that coffee may help reduce the risk of developing skin cancer was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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