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Reviewed By: Louise Chang,
SOURCES: 2008 Medical Reference from Medstar. Paul Nghiem, MD, PhD, Dermatologist/Researcher, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
© 1999-2011 Medstar Television
Coffee grinder
That double shot of caffeine in your morning cup of latte may be good for more than just a wake-up jolt. New research on mice shows it may also prevent skin cancer.
For some time, we've known that caffeine appears to be able to prevent skin cancer. There's epidemiological data along those lines and the interesting more recent thing is that caffeine appears to be able to do that when you apply it topically.
Researcher Paul Nghiem (NEE-UM) and his colleagues studied the skin cells of mice damaged by ultra-violet rays. They found that caffeine, when applied directly to the damaged skin, blocked pre-cancerous cells from dividing and becoming skin cancer.
Caffeine, at least in mice and in cells, can reverse that damage in part by actually getting rid of the cells that are most damaged, so that more healthy cells can grow in.
Today experts recommend covering up or using a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher to avoid exposure to the ultraviolet rays of sun, but in the future caffeine may be added to sunscreen with the hope of making it even more effective.
It's very possible that ultimately it may make sense to put it into a sunscreen where it would be there to block the sun in the first place, and then to help reverse the damage that does get through the sunscreen.
Of course human studies will be required to show if caffeine can help prevent skin cancer in people. For WebMD, I'm Sandee Lamotte.
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