Tea May Slash the Risk of Skin Cancer

Drinking two cups of tea a day may slash the risk of skin cancer.

The study, published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, compared the tea-drinking habits of 1,400 skin cancer patients with the habits of 700 patients who had not developed the disease. Researchers asked the subjects about diet, lifestyle and their consumption of green and black teas, both of which are rich in antioxidants that have been shown to prevent the development of cancer cells in animals.

The collected data revealed that subjects who drank two or more cups a day had a 65 percent lower risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma. Tea-drinking also appeared to protect against basal cell carcinoma, but to a lesser degree.

Squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas are not as dangerous as malignant melanomas, which have a high mortality rate, but they do affect a large percentage of the population around the world and need to be surgically removed.