Coffee plus exercise to prevent skin cancer? Let's do it

Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in foreign countries, especially in countries with long sunshine and people who are used to sunbathing outdoors. Skin cancer is closely related to ultraviolet radiation. Experimental studies have shown that regular coffee drinking and moderate exercise can effectively prevent skin cancer.

This test result suggests that people in areas and industries that are closely exposed to ultraviolet rays should drink coffee regularly. For example, people in plateau areas, coastal areas, and groups engaged in special radiation work should drink coffee regularly.

A study in the United States shows that drinking coffee combined with proper exercise can cause cells damaged by medium-wave ultraviolet UVB to die on their own, thereby preventing skin cancer.

Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey published a research report in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, saying that experiments showed that mice that drank coffee and exercised had significantly different rates of cell apoptosis from mice that did not do so. Cell apoptosis refers to the suicidal death of precancerous cells and is closely related to the occurrence and spread of cancer.

The researchers divided the mice into four groups: the first group drank caffeinated water, the amount a person drinks one to two cups of coffee a day; the second group drank decaffeinated water and ran on a spinning wheel; the third group ran and drank caffeinated water; and the fourth group did neither exercise nor drink caffeinated water. All four groups of mice were exposed to UVB radiation, which can cause sunburn and tanning.

The results showed that compared with the fourth group of mice, the UVB-induced apoptosis in mice that only drank coffee increased by 95%, the apoptosis in mice that only exercised increased by 120%, and the apoptosis in mice that both drank coffee and exercised increased by nearly 400%.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with more than 1 million new cases each year, according to the National Cancer Institute. As a result, finding new ways to prevent skin cancer has attracted much attention.