Coffee cream may protect skin
Tuesday August 16th, 2011
Caffeine-based creams could be developed to help prevent some skin cancers, researchers claimed last night.
New
research suggests that caffeine can help prevent some kinds of skin cancer
"at the molecular level".
The findings are backed by other research which has suggested that coffee-drinking may help protect against the development of skin cancers which are not melanoma - the most dangerous kind.
Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, tell how they tested the theory on laboratory mice. They found it prevents the action of an enzyme known as ATR, which can trigger cancer.
Researcher Allan Conney said: "Although it is known that coffee drinking is associated with a decreased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, there now needs to be studies to determine whether topical caffeine inhibits sunlight-induced skin cancer."
He added: "Caffeine might become a weapon in prevention because it inhibits ATR and also acts ad as a sunscreen and directly absorbs damaging UV light."
* A second study in the same journal suggests that a chemical derived from ginseng may help relieve the side-effects of cancer treatment.
The synthetic compounds may reduce damage to the nerves and the weight loss linked to sickness from using the drug taxol, according to researcher Samuel Danishefsky, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA.
They also seemed to prevent damage to blood cells caused by another cancer drug 5-fluorouracil. The findings come from laboratory studies.
Protection from UV-induced skin carcinogenesis by genetic inhibition of the ATR kinase. Masaoki Kawasumi et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences August 15 2011 #11-11378
Multifaceted cytoprotection by synthetic polyacetylenes inspired by the ginseng-derived natural product, panaxytriol. Ting-Chao Chou et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences August 15 2011 #11-11332
Tags: Alternative Therapy | Cancer | Dermatology | North America
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