Monday, August 26, 2002


skin cancer and parkinson's?

maybe we should stop drinking our coffee and start wearing it. a new study seems to indicate that rubbing a lotion containing caffeine on your skin may protect against skin cancer.

in a process called apoptosis, somehow the caffeine in the lotion finds pre-cancerous cells and selectively tells them to die. scientists aren't yet sure why; but have demonstrated the effect on mice. obviously, more testing has to happen before the effect can be fully extrapolated to humans.

this reminds me of a previous study where scientists found that caffeine -- found in both chocolate and coffee -- seems to reduce the risk of parkinson's disease. this study, again in mice, does appear to demonstrate that caffeine has some kind of selective "neuro-protective" effect.

posted by fortune | 6:44 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments