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2007-8-31 17:58:52 |
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Drinking tea may help prevent two common skin cancers, a new study suggests. The new study published in the May 2007 issue of journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found tea drinkers had a 20 percent lower risk of developing squamous cell or basal cell carcinoma. In the study, researchers interviewed 770 New Hampshire residents with basal cell carcinoma, 696 with squamous cell carcinoma and 715 age-matched men and women without cancer. Those who ever regularly drunk one or more cups of tea a day were 20 to 30 percent less likely to have the cancers than those who did not drink tea, the study found. The association was even stronger in those who have been drinking tea for decades and those who regularly had two or more cups of tea a day, the researchers reported. The link was still significant after other factors such as age, skin type and history of severe burns were considered. However, there is no link found between tea drinking and the risk of malignant melanoma, the most deadly skin cancer. The researchers suggest that tea antioxidants may help prevent damage in the skin by UV radiation. Early studies found a tea antioxidant found in green tea known as EGCG reduces risk of sunburns. But they warned that tea drinking should not be a reason for people to get sunburns. No evidence indicates that drinking tea lowered skin cancer risk in people who accumulated sunburns in the past, according to the authors. In explaining why drinking tea was not linked with reduced risk of melanoma, the researchers say that the prevention by tea drinking may be limited and they could not prevent damages that are serious enough to cause melanoma. |
