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SoFl
USA
79 Posts |
 Posted - 09/20/2007 : 10:22:05
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Putting caffeine on skin lowers risk of cancer in lab mice
WASHINGTON — Caffeine, the chemical stimulant in coffee and tea, has been found to lower the risk of skin cancer in laboratory mice.
A study suggests that a skin lotion spiked with caffeine or with another compound found in green tea can reduce by more than half the number of cancer tumors on the skin of hairless mice exposed to brutal levels of ultraviolet radiation, said Dr. Allan Conney, a professor of cancer and leukemia research at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
"We had between 50 to 70% tumor formation inhibition in the mice that were treated with caffeine or with EGCG (the other chemical compound)," said Conney, senior author of a study appearing this week in the online site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers in the United States. The American Academy of Dermatology estimates about a million cases will be diagnosed in the country this year. Among them will be more than 88,000 new cases of melanoma, the disease's deadliest form. Skin cancer generally is curable by cutting, burning or freezing the tumor cells, but untreated it can be deadly.
To test effects of caffeine on skin cancer, Conney and his colleagues exposed 90 mice to high levels of ultraviolet radiation twice a day for 20 days. They used a strain of animals, called hairless mice, commonly used for skin cancer studies.
After the mice got their UVB doses, the animals were divided into three groups. One group was slathered daily with a solution of acetone and caffeine. Another group received acetone and EGCG. The third group got skin applications of acetone only. Acetone is an organic solution often used on the skin.
At the end of 18 weeks, the three groups of mice were killed, and the level of skin tumor formation was analyzed.
Conney said mice in all three groups developed malignant skin tumors, called squamous cell carcinomas, but the number of tumors per mouse was reduced by 72% in those treated with caffeine and by 66% among those treated with EGCG, compared to the controls treated only with acetone.
The treated mice also had fewer nonmalignant, sunlight-related tumors, said Conney. Compared to the control group of mice, the mice treated with caffeine had 44% fewer nonmalignant tumors, the EGCG group 55% fewer, he said.
Conney said that although both compounds were effective in lower tumor risk, caffeine has an advantage because it is chemically more stable than EGCG.
Unlike sun screen lotions, which protect against skin cancer by preventing the skin from absorbing ultraviolet rays from the sun, the caffeine's cancer protection works in the cells after exposure to the ultraviolet rays. Rays from the sun can cause genetic changes in the skin that can lead to skin cancer. Conney said caffeine apparently blocks this action by causing abnormal cells to kill themselves, a type of programed cell suicide that prevents development of abnormal growths.
"This is not a sunscreening effect," said Conney. "It is a biological effect."
He said the caffeine acts selectively, causing the abnormal cells to die but not affecting the normal cells.
Caffeine, heavily consumed in coffee, tea and some cola drinks, has been shown in other studies to prompt mental alertness in many people. Some studies have suggested caffeine aggravates symptoms of menopause or intensifies the side effects of some antibiotics. Heavy caffeine use has been linked to miscarriage. Some studies also have suggested that some people can become addicted to caffeine and can experience headaches and other symptoms when deprived of their morning coffee or cola.
Dr. Darrell Rigel, a professor of dermatology at New York University and an expert spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology, said research like Conney's is needed badly because "skin cancer is a major problem. I hope this treatment can prove itself, because there are more skin cancers than all other cancers combined in the U.S."
He said there is a need for a "morning-after" treatment for skin cancer, a therapy that would reduce cancer risk after excessive sun exposure.
Rigell said that although hairless mice are commonly used for such research, "there is really no good animal model for skin cancer. The hairless mouse is the best of a bunch of bad choices" for testing skin cancer compounds in the laboratory.
As a result, he said, "a lot of things that work in mice cannot be extrapolated to humans."
He said other treatments that showed promise in mice have often failed when tried on humans.
Conney said the next step in studying the topical effects of caffeine will be to use the solution on people who are highly susceptible to skin cancer — people who have a precancerous condition or who already have had skin cancer.
In another study in Proceedings, researchers studying the effects of alpha and gamma radiation on cells found caffeine prevented some genes from being repaired after they were damaged by radiation. The study, by researchers at Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratories, used Chinese hamster ovary cells in a laboratory dish for their study.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2002-08-26-caffiene_x.htm
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SoFl
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2007 : 10:33:47
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To follow up, I am experimenting with combinations of caffeine and green tea on some problem areas. If anyone else tries anything or has any more info on this, please post in this thread.
So far I have taken the green tea leaves after I brewed them (I now drink green tea every day for my skin) and I apply the wet freshly brewed leaves directly to the area. I also got some caffeine pills and dissolved them in water and I've been applying that directly on the skin and also sprinkling it directly on the green tea leaves after I apply them to sort of super charge the area with caffeine.
It's too early to tell if this is effective, but it doesn't hurt, in fact it feels nice...refreshing and it does seem to sort of pucker up small suspicious spots like they're going to get a small scab and disappear.
I'm also using the caffeinated water basically on my whole body after I get out of the shower as a trial preventitive...no problems or issues for me with this treatment so far. It does seem to "light up" some spots a little bit which I think is probably an indication of something at work.
Peace. Sofl |
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Mark
36 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2007 : 17:33:19
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| I've used from time to time plain green tea extract. Hard to tell if it really did much. But it didn't hurt at all. I just applied the extract right to the lesion. Seemed to soak in pretty good, but again, I can't tell if its doing much of anything. |
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anivoc
668 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2007 : 10:40:37
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quote:
Originally posted by SoFl
To follow up, I am experimenting with combinations of caffeine and green tea on some problem areas. If anyone else tries anything or has any more info on this, please post in this thread.
So far I have taken the green tea leaves after I brewed them (I now drink green tea every day for my skin) and I apply the wet freshly brewed leaves directly to the area. I also got some caffeine pills and dissolved them in water and I've been applying that directly on the skin and also sprinkling it directly on the green tea leaves after I apply them to sort of super charge the area with caffeine.
It's too early to tell if this is effective, but it doesn't hurt, in fact it feels nice...refreshing and it does seem to sort of pucker up small suspicious spots like they're going to get a small scab and disappear.
I'm also using the caffeinated water basically on my whole body after I get out of the shower as a trial preventitive...no problems or issues for me with this treatment so far. It does seem to "light up" some spots a little bit which I think is probably an indication of something at work.
Peace. Sofl
Cool! I posted this somewhere else in the forums and was going to try it witht he pills and Dmso on a few spots. Where did you find the pills?
You might try a mixture of dmso and caffeine pill on one know spot for a few weeks and see what you get. |
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SoFl
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2007 : 11:10:26
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quote:
Originally posted by anivoc
quote:
Originally posted by SoFl
To follow up, I am experimenting with combinations of caffeine and green tea on some problem areas. If anyone else tries anything or has any more info on this, please post in this thread.
So far I have taken the green tea leaves after I brewed them (I now drink green tea every day for my skin) and I apply the wet freshly brewed leaves directly to the area. I also got some caffeine pills and dissolved them in water and I've been applying that directly on the skin and also sprinkling it directly on the green tea leaves after I apply them to sort of super charge the area with caffeine.
It's too early to tell if this is effective, but it doesn't hurt, in fact it feels nice...refreshing and it does seem to sort of pucker up small suspicious spots like they're going to get a small scab and disappear.
I'm also using the caffeinated water basically on my whole body after I get out of the shower as a trial preventitive...no problems or issues for me with this treatment so far. It does seem to "light up" some spots a little bit which I think is probably an indication of something at work.
Peace. Sofl
Cool! I posted this somewhere else in the forums and was going to try it witht he pills and Dmso on a few spots. Where did you find the pills?
You might try a mixture of dmso and caffeine pill on one know spot for a few weeks and see what you get.
I just went to the drug store and got some nodoz and ground them up.
I have never messed around with DMSO....for now I just had my wife give me one of her makeup brushes and I brew some concentrated green tea, then add caffeine...let it cool a few minutes and brush it on like paint. Occasionally I'm just using pure caffeinated water applied in the same way. I'll use a 200mg caffeine pill dissolved in 2 or 3 ounces of hot water.
I'm watching how the suspicious spots react. So far after a few days all I can say is that it feels good going on and it seems to have a very slight "lighting up" effect...in other words you get some red spots that I think are probably sub clinical AK's....and that dies out shortly.
I think if I wanted to try a more aggressive spot treatment, maybe something like a highly concentrated caffeine solution is what I might use.
I guess part of it is going to come down to how similar are people to rats?????? I do eat cheese. |
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Martha1
50 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2007 : 16:40:12
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Here's how I have used green tea occasionally, before and alternately with my other treatments, but I have no way to prove it had any effect: I had read on the topicalinfo.org site that the application of heat was one possible cancer therapy. Since I drink green tea (from tea bags) usually twice a day, it occurred to me I might use heat therapy by holding a hot tea bag against the lesion on my nose. It didn't occur to me until later that this could also be considered "caffeine therapy."
After showering, I would make a cup of tea and let it sit (while sipping a little) until it was cooled enough so I could pick up the bag and squeeze most of the tea out of it without burning my fingers. Then I would hold the hot bag against my nose. It almost burned, and I held it there until it no longer felt hot, which took only a couple of minutes. Early in my treatment, when the lesion tingled, the hot bag pressed against it was quite comforting. The heat also caused the area to become more pink and presumably improved circulation to the area, which should have helped the other treatments which followed it to work better.
As I said, I did this only occasionally and can't evaluate how it may or may not have helped my progress. |
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caffeine on skin - study - USA Today
