Okay, to be fair, it's caffeine that's the cause this time. Red Bull, tea, black black gum, you're all in on this one.
We've actually known for a little while that ingesting caffeine can help prevent squamous cell carcinoma, but it hasn't really been understood how — until now. Caffeine, it seems, inhibits ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related enzyme — better known as ATR. When this enzyme is out of the way, DNA-damaged cells are far more likely to die.
Rather than slathering mice in caffeine in order to pick apart if this was the reason, researchers bred a mouse with significantly diminished ATR function in their skin, and put them in an intense UV environment. Compared to their normal cousins, they remained tumor-free for significantly longer, and had fewer tumors when they did develop.
The benefit is prophylactic; researchers believe the ATR inhibition is useful for preventing cancer from forming.
The researchers suggest a topical caffeine sunscreen could be used — it would serve double duty, both in limiting ATR and directly absorbing the UV radiation. I'm betting ThinkGeek already has this covered...
Photo by Umberto Shtanzman via Shutterstock