Espresso tan: Coffee suncream could ward off skin cancer while bronzing sunbathers

It is the Holy Grail for sunbathers, a sunscreen that will protect against skin cancer while giving a bronzed glow to the user, and it may be closer to development than first thought.

American scientists believe a suncream based on coffee, or even chocolate or tea, could help protect against the most common form of skin cancer, while giving the appearance of a tan and even keeping wrinkles at bay.

The appealing thought comes from experts who have shown that caffeine triggers the death of UV-damaged cells, while leaving healthy ones unharmed.

To test the idea that caffeine provides protection by interfering with a skin protein called ATR, they genetically-engineered mice so that they made much less ATR than usual.

The animals and normal mice were then put under UV lamps.

Those low in ATR took longer to develop skin cancers.

After 19 weeks, the GM mice had 70 per cent fewer tumours and the cancers they did develop were far less likely to have penetrated the skin, allowing them to use the bloodstream to spread through the body.

The researchers, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, said that cells need ATR to repair damage and if there isn't enough of it, they self-destruct, nipping any cancer in the bud.

Caffeine lowers levels of ATR, pushing UV-damaged cells towards suicide.

The finding explains previous studies which credited drinking caffeinated - but not decaffeinated - tea and coffee with warding off non-melanoma skin cancer.

In the biggest study, involving 93,676 women, each daily cup of caffeinated coffee cut the odds of this form of skin cancer by some 5 per cent.

This means that six cups a day would reduce the risk of the disease by almost a third.

Despite their results, the researchers say that people shouldn't start consuming vast amounts of tea or coffee just so that they can lie out in the sun.

But they say their finding could be used to create a caffeine-based sun cream.

As an added bonus, caffeine absorbs UV light - stopping it from damaging and wrinkling the skin. It may also provide a bronzed look.

Professor Dot Bennett, of St George's, University of London, said: "Caffeine lotion might promote tanning a little, since this family of molecules stimulates pigment cells to make more pigment."

However, she cautioned that it remains unclear what effect, if any, such a sunscreen would have against the more deadly malignant melanoma form of skin cancer.

From: dailymail.co.uk