Skin Cancer Found to be More Scarce in Coffee Drinkers

Posted: December 20, 2007

America's most common cancer may be rarer among postmenopausal women who drink coffee. The researchers who report that news are talking about nonmelanoma skin cancer.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that there will be more than a million new cases and fewer than 2,000 deaths from nonmelanoma skin cancer in the United States in 2007.

Wayne State University's Ernest Abel, PhD, and colleagues studied coffee consumption and nonmelanoma skin cancer in more than 77,000 white postmenopausal women in the United States. The women participated in a long-term observational health study that began in the 1990s.

When the women joined the study, they shared lots of information about themselves, including how much coffee, decaf or caffeinated, and tea they drank and whether they had ever been diagnosed with nonmelanoma skin cancer.

Skin cancer and coffee
A total of 7,482 women reported ever having nonmelanoma skin cancer.