Good news for tea drinkers; lowered risk of skin cancer

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology is reporting that regular drinkers of tea may have a lower risk (20 percent to 30 percent) for two common forms of skin cancer.

It also appears that the more you drink tea and the longer you have been a tea drinker the stronger the benefit.

It should be noted that the benefits of tea seem to be centered on prevention and not a cure for the damage already caused by too much sun.

Researchers found no evidence that tea drinking lowered skin cancer risk in people who'd accumulated painful sunburns in the past." The study also did not explore the relationship between tea and melanoma (the deadliest form of skin cancer).

Still, the findings support the theory that tea antioxidants may limit the damage UV radiation inflicts on the skin, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Judy R. Rees of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

This follows a 2001 report published in BMC Dermatology that also showed the benefits of tea in protecting drinkers from skin cancer. In that study, which was conducted in Arizona, it was found that people who developed skin cancer drank significantly less hot tea than those who didn't develop skin cancer.

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