Coffee Cuts Skin Cancer Risk

Just in time for summer: new research shows that the more coffee you drink, the lower your risk of the most common type of skin cancer.

From Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, the researchers studied more than 1,000 nurses and their coffee intake. They found that the more coffee the women drank, the less likely they were to develop basal cell carcinoma, the most common type of skin cancer. One possible reason for the inverse association: caffeine. Caffeinated drinks, like tea and soda, also showed a smaller risk of basal cell carcinoma, while decaf coffee showed no decrease in risk.

Doctor Jiali Han from Brigham said it's one of the many diseases that coffee can prevent. She said to CNN and other media outlets, "Our results add basal cell carcinoma to a list of conditions for which risk is decreased with increasing coffee consumption. This list includes conditions with serious negative health consequences such as type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease." What she doesn't recommend: upping your intake to prevent skin cancer. (That's what SPF is for, guys.)