
Coffee seems to have a protective effect against cutaneous melanoma, lowering the risk of the skin disease among coffee drinkers, suggested a new study.
Erikka Loftfield, M.P.H., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, used data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health study to determine if there was an association between coffee consumption and risk of cutaneous melanoma.
Information on coffee consumption was obtained from 447,357 non-Hispanic white subjects with a self-administered food-frequency questionnaire in 1995/1996, with a median follow-up of 10 years. All subjects included in the analysis were cancer-free at baseline, and the authors adjusted for ambient residential ultraviolet radiation exposure, body mass index, age, sex, physical activity, alcohol intake, and smoking history.
The researchers point out that the results are preliminary and may not be applicable to other populations, and therefore additional investigations of coffee intake are needed. However, they concluded that "Because of its high disease burden, lifestyle modifications with even modest protective effects may have a meaningful impact on melanoma morbidity."
The study is published in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Source: ANI