A new study suggests that drinking coffee can lower the risk of developing basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. “Our data indicate that the more caffeinated coffee you consume, the lower your risk of developing basal cell carcinoma," said Doctor Jiali Han, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US. “I would not recommend increasing your coffee intake based on these data alone," he added. “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." Studies showed an inverse association between coffee consumption and risk of basal cell carcinoma in 112,897 participants included in two large and long-running studies. According to the study published in the journal Cancer Research, a similar association was also observed between caffeine intake from all dietary sources and risk of basal cell carcinoma. Drinking decaffeinated coffee, however, was not linked with a decreased risk of basal cell carcinoma. “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 Dr. 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." Scientists could not link coffee consumption or caffeine intake to the two other forms of skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma, the most deadly form of the disease.
