Caffeine may protect against skin cancer

Seattle

- New research shows why caffeine may help protect against skin cancer, HealthDay News reports.

Researchers looked at the effect of caffeine on human skin cells that had been exposed to UV radiation. They found that in UV-damaged cells, caffeine interrupted the protein ATR-Chk1, which caused the cells to self-destruct, but had no effect on undamaged cells, according to the study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.