Can coffee prevent skin cancer? Review of the experimental process

Erikka Loftfield, lead author of the study and a member of the National Cancer Institute, said that while the findings are encouraging for coffee drinkers,"it's not that people should change their coffee drinking habits," but "it's important to reduce sun and UV exposure to reduce risk."

"Our results, and other recent studies, have reassured coffee lovers that drinking coffee is not a risky business." Loftfield told LiveScience in an email,"However, our findings do not suggest that everyone should change their coffee drinking habits."

Review of experimental process

Previous studies have found that coffee consumption reduces the risk of malignant melanoma. Melanomas form in pigmented cells called melanogenic cells. According to the National Cancer Institute, 9710 patients died of the disease in 2014 and 76100 new cases were diagnosed.

Loftfield and her team analyzed a large amount of data from a joint National Center for Health Research and American Association of Retired Persons follow-up study that followed 447357 retirees for ten years. In the end, there were 2904 patients with malignant melanoma (cancer cells that had spread deep into the skin) and 2874 patients with early-stage melanoma (cancer cells that remained on the surface of the skin). "Our study is by far the largest and most valuable study of the relationship between melanoma and coffee," Loftfield said.

Participants provided information about their daily coffee consumption, as well as other risk factors such as exercise, alcohol intake and body mass index. To measure the participants 'UV exposure, the researchers measured the amount of light NASA received at each person's residence.