Drinking Coffee is Good For Your…Skin?

Drinking Coffee is Good For Your…Skin?

Whether it’s freshly brewed or instant, if you’re sitting down to your morning cup of coffee, you could be reducing the risk of skin cancer with every sip, new research suggests.

Being a habitual coffee drinker could help to protect against malignant melanoma, one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Researchers found that those who drank four or more cups of coffee daily were 20 percent less likely to develop malignant melanoma than non-coffee drinkers.

For the study, participants recounted their coffee consumption along with other factors related to their cancer risk such as exercise, alcohol intake and body-mass index (BMI.) The researchers reported only 56 cases of melanoma a year per 100,000 people who drank at least four cups a day compared to nearly 78 cases a year per 100,000 people who did not drink coffee.

The research applies to caffeinated coffee and researchers believe that there could be a compound in coffee that protects against malignant melanoma.

Skin cancer — the abnormal growth of skin cells — most often develops on skin exposed to the sun. But this common form of cancer can also occur on areas of the skin not ordinarily exposed to sunlight. There are three major types of skin cancer — basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.

The main way to reduce the risk of skin cancer by limiting or avoiding exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Checking skin for suspicious changes can help detect skin cancer at its earliest stages. Early detection of skin cancer gives the greatest chance for successful skin cancer treatment.

Image Credit: KateBud/Shutterstock

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