Source: China Daily

03-01-2009 12:51

THURSDAY, Feb. 26 -- Past studies have suggested that caffeine might offer some protection from skin cancer, and new research may explain why.

Rich Westerfield, the owner of Aldo Coffee Company serves his cappuccinos to the judges in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic Region Barista Competition in Cranberry, Pa., Friday, Feb. 6, 2009.[Agencies]

"We have found what we believe to be the mechanism by which caffeine is associated with decreased skin cancer," said lead researcher Dr. Paul Nghiem, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

For the study, Nghiem's team looked at caffeine's effect on human skin cells in a laboratory that had been exposed to ultraviolet radiation. They found that in cells damaged by UV rays, caffeine interrupted a protein called ATR-Chk1, causing the damaged cells to self-destruct.

"Caffeine has no effect on undamaged cells," Nghiem said.

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