Coffee drinkers may face lower risk of melanoma, as a new study has suggested that it may have a protective effect against the skin cancer.

Erikka Loftfield, M.P.H., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, used data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health study to determine if there was an association between coffee consumption and risk of cutaneous melanoma.

Information on coffee consumption was obtained from 447,357 non-Hispanic white subjects with a self-administered food-frequency questionnaire in 1995/1996, with a median follow-up of 10 years. All subjects included in the analysis were cancer-free at baseline, and the authors adjusted for ambient residential ultraviolet radiation exposure, body mass index, age, sex, physical activity, alcohol intake, and smoking history.

Overall, the highest coffee intake was inversely associated with a risk of malignant melanoma, with a 20 percent lower risk for those who consumed 4 cups per day or more. There was also a trend toward more protection with higher intake, with the protective effect increasing from 1 or fewer cups to 4 or more. However, the effect was statistically significant for caffeinated but not decaffeinated coffee and only for protection against malignant melanoma but not melanoma in-situ, which may have a different etiology.

The researchers point out that the results are preliminary and may not be applicable to other populations, and therefore additional investigations of coffee intake are needed. However, they concluded that "Because of its high disease burden, lifestyle modifications with even modest protect ive effects may have a meaningful impact on melanoma morbidity."

The study is published in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.