Besides protecting your heart, brain, liver and teeth, a National Cancer Institute study found that drinking coffee can reduce your risk of malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
The National Cancer Institute arrived at this conclusion after studying 450,000 men and women.
Those who drank four or more cups of coffee per day slashed their risk of skin cancer by 20 percent. This was even after other factors that could impact skin cancer risk such as age, smoking, physical activity and amount of UV exposure was controlled by the researchers.
The researchers also found that people who consumed one, two, three cups of coffee per day had a very slight decrease in skin cancer risk over non-coffee drinkers. It was only with four or more cups that the risk reduction became significant.
According to lead researcher Erikka Loftfield, the reason why coffee may guard against melanoma couldn’t be pinpointed.
“Caffeine or another compound that is more abundant in regular coffee than decaffeinated, could be related to these findings,” says Loftfield, Men’s Journal reports.
It’s also very important to note that despite these findings, drinking coffee alone won’t spare you from skin cancer. Never forget to use a sunscreen.
S.O.Z