Coffee consumption ‘can reduce skin cancer risk’

Drinking coffee could help protect people from basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer.

This is the suggestion of a new study published in the medical journal Cancer Research, which involved the analysis of data collated from more than 110,000 patients.

An inverse association was observed between all coffee consumption and risk of basal cell carcinoma, a trend that was mirrored when assessing intake of caffeinated products in general, while experiments with mice have also supported this link.

Dr Jiali Han, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston and Harvard School of Public Health, said longer and more detailed studies are needed before this link can be confirmed.

However, he added: "Given the large number of newly diagnosed cases, daily dietary changes having any protective effect may have an impact on public health."

NHS data shows that basal cell carcinomas account for around 80 percent of all cases of non-melanoma skin cancer in the UK each year.