Caffeine in Coffee Fends Off Skin Cancer

The positive coffee news -- specifically, the benefits of caffeine -- just keeps percolating. The latest? As if fending off Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, asthma, and siesta urges wasn't enough, caffeine has now been found to cut your risk of basal cell carcinoma, the most common type of skin cancer.

Evidence of caffeine's cancer-fighting effects has been, uh, brewing for a while. No one exactly understands how caffeine does what it does but it definitely does something. In this case, research shows the risk of basal cell carcinoma is 20% lower in women who drink more than 3 cups of coffee a day, compared to women who rarely touch the stuff. (Don't like coffee? Get the benefits without drinking it.) Men get protection too, but less (about 9%).

A "cup" of coffee is a small, 8-ounce mug that has about 100 mg of caffeine. If your notion of a cup of coffee is a medium container from a strong java shop like Starbucks, you're talking 16 ounces and 320 mg of caffeine.

Caffeine's skin-cancer protection exists beyond coffee. Applying caffeine directly to skin seems to work even better. While drinking coffee helps your body zap cancerous cells after sun damage occurs, applying caffeine to your skin may prevent the damage in the first place. Caffeine not only acts as a sunscreen, absorbing damaging UV light, it also works at a molecular level, inhibiting a protein that skin tumors need. (Watch this slide show to learn how to spot skin cancer early.)

Will Starbucks be selling sunscreen next summer? Probably not, but caffeine's already used in some moisturizers and body treatments. A Coppertone Café? It could happen.

Discover even more surprising benefits of coffee . . . and tea, too.