Caffeine plus exercise can help prevent skin cancer

Exposure to ultraviolet rays (UVB) in sunlight is the main factor in inducing skin cancer. This type of ultraviolet light damages the DNA of skin cells, turning them into dangerous precancerous cells. A study in the United States said that exercise combined with a moderate amount of caffeine may help prevent skin cancer caused by overexposure. Experiments on laboratory mice found that exercise stimulation and caffeine feeding not only reduced the risk of skin tumors in mice by 62%, but also reduced the size of tumors in cancerous mice by about 82%.

"This coffee-and-exercise regimen reduced the risk of skin cancer in animals caused by excessive exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays, and we believe this therapy will also work in humans," said lead author Yao-Ping Lu, a professor at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, New Jersey, USA.

The researchers fed the mice a dose of caffeine and then forced them to run on a rolling wheel for a while. Both caffeine and exercise were good for the animals, but their combined effect was far greater than the sum of their parts.

Simply feeding caffeine can reduce the number of tumors in cancer-bearing mice by about 27%, and the size of their tumors can also be reduced by about 61%; for cancer-bearing mice that only exercise, the number of tumors in their bodies can be reduced by about 35%, and the size of their tumors can also be reduced by about 70%.

It's not clear why this effect occurs, but Professor Yao-Ping Lu suspects it may be related to inflammation, as the mice that underwent coffee exercise therapy had inflammation reduced by about 92%.

This experiment shows that the combination of caffeine and exercise can, to a certain extent, destroy early cancer cells induced by the damage of DNA in skin cells by ultraviolet rays. Researchers believe that this is important for the prevention of skin cancer, and may not only be effective for skin cancer, but also for other cancers.