Can Coffee Cure Skin Cancer?

Research work in the laboratory as to the effects of caffeine on skin cancers has revealed some positive results. Scientists have found that caffeine in the blood system helps indirectly eliminated damaged human skin cells.

The caffeine acts on the protein ATR-Chk1 by interrupting its influence on the skin cells damaged by ultraviolet rays, thus causing their self-destruction.

The number of damaged cells that are destroyed will increase considerably with the increased introduction of caffeine, although to be really effective the amounts of tea or coffee intake would have to be huge.

Therefore, scientists are now looking into the application of caffeine directly onto the skin, which seems to have more immediate effects.

They have found that this method reduces the development of skin cancer by more than 70 percent in the laboratory, and gradually, further studies are being carried out on humans.

Caffeine is an efficient sunscreen against the damage caused by UV rays, as well as destroying damaged cells, though further studies must be carried out to confirm the already promising results.

Scientists confirm that this is not the first time caffeine has been associated with lower levels of non-melanoma skin cancers [Melonoma skin cancer], while other scientists affirm that these results do not prove that caffeine does in fact lower the risk of skin cancer.

The main issue being that it is still not clear how much caffeine each one of us would have to consume daily for any beneficial effect, and that the only real benefit one can be sure of for the moment is as a sunscreen protection.