Coffee the Protection for Skin Cancer

That morning cups of coffee that many American's need to wake up in the morning. However, it just may be possible that in the future you may do more with cup of coffee instead of just drinking it. Instead of apply soap to your skin you just may be using coffee to protect you from the harmful sun's rays or skin cancer.

Rutgers new study now enforces the idea that caffeine protects against certain types of skin cancers at the molecular level by stopping ATR. ATR is a protein enzyme in the skin. Researcher's theory which is founded upon their knowledge obtain by studying mice. That putting caffeine directly onto the skin may aide in prevention of damaging UV light from causing skin cancer.

Research in the past has demonstrated that mice who were fed caffeinated water and exposed to lamps which produced UVB radiation which damages the DNA in their skin cells where able to eliminate a greater percentage of their seriously damaged cells which had decreased the risk of cells becoming cancerous.

Dr. Allan Conney, PhD, Director of the Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research stated it is known that coffee drinking is linked with a reduced risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, now there needs to be studies to conclude whether or not topical caffeine stops sunlight induced skin cancer.

For this study, Rutgers researchers in association with researchers from the University of Washington, genetically modified and decreased ATR in one group of mice instead of using caffeinated water to hinder ATR. There findings had shown that genetically modified mice developed tumors slower in comparison to unmodified mice and had 69% less tumors in comparison to regular mice and also developed four times less invasive tumors.

However, the study also did find that when both groups of mice had been exposed to recurrent ultraviolet rays for an ongoing length of time, tumor development occurred in both groups of mice.

Sunlight induced skin cancer is the most frequent cancer in the United States according to the National Cancer Institute. Each year there are more than one million new cases. Even though there is numerous human epidemiologic studies associating caffeinated drink intake with remarked decrease in several types of cancer among them skin cancer. It still remains unknown how and why coffee guards against the cancer.

According to Dr. Conney, could become the weapon in guarding the skin since it prevents ATR and it also performs as a sunscreen and directly consumes UV damaging light.

Among the wonders of coffee Bristol University researchers had discovered that a cup of caffeinated coffee is a must for the working woman. It helps in raising performance levels in high pressure environments.

At Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Frank Hu, not only made the link between coffee drinking and decreased risk of diabetes. He found that women who consumed one or more cups of coffee each day had shown to have a decreased risk for stroke.

Researchers from Harvard also had found that men who consume coffee regularly have a greater decreased risk for the development of a more aggressive form of prostate cancer. Coffee has been associated to decreasing the risk for certain types of breast cancer.