The Skin Cancer Benefits Of Caffeine In Coffee

Skin cancer accounts for over half of all cancers in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. With the Food and Drug Administration reporting 90 percent of people in the world use some form of caffeine, it's only natural that researchers would study caffeine to see if it may be able to help prevent skin cancer. Although you shouldn't stop using sunscreen, research shows caffeine may play a role in reducing your risk for this common cancer.

Caffeine's Effects on the Body

Caffeine is absorbed by your body quickly and passes into the brain, where it works as a stimulant on your nervous system to release adrenaline and dopamine, chemicals that create a "buzz." Caffeine also affects your cardiovascular system by forcing your heart to beat faster and pump more blood through your blood vessels and muscles. Caffeine reaches its peak level in your blood in about one hour and remains for up to six hours. Caffeine may decrease your risk for diabetes, Parkinson's disease and several different types of cancer.

Skin Cancer Prevention

Researchers at Rutgers University found a possible link between caffeine, exercise and skin cancer prevention, as reported in 2007 in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Mice were divided in caffeine, exercise, combination and control groups for two weeks while they were exposed to lamps generating UVB radiation that damaged DNA in their skin cells. What the researchers were looking for was evidence of programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, in cancerous cells caused by radiation. The mice consuming caffeine had a 95 percent increase in apoptosis, the exercise group a 120 percent increase, and the combination caffeine/exercise group had a 400 percent increase.

Skin Cancer Treatment

A separate study published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" in 2002 treated mice with skin tumors caused by UVB radiation with topical applications of either caffeine or an antioxidant found in green tea known as epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG. After treatments once a day five days a week for 18 weeks, both substances reduced the number of nonmalignant and malignant skin tumors per mouse, with caffeine improvements of 44 percent and 72 percent, respectively.

Potential Use in Sunscreens

A team at the University of Washington in Seattle discovered what they believe may be the way in which caffeine is able to decrease skin cancer risk. Their study, published in the "Journal of Investigative Dermatology" in February 2009, found that caffeine interrupted a protein called ATR-Chk1 in cells damaged by radiation, causing the damaged cells to self-destruct. The researchers concluded that sunscreens containing caffeine preparations might be used to help prevent skin cancer.