(CBC) - Having your morning coffee and hitting the gym may be a prescription for staving off skin cancer, U.S. researchers have found.

A study on mice found that the equivalent of drinking two cups of coffee and then exercising dramatically reduced the number of sun-damaged cells that can lead to cancer. In the experiments, one group of hairless mice drank caffeinated water, another exercised on a running wheel and a third group drank and ran on the wheel. All three groups were exposed to cell damaging UVB radiation, the equivalent of spending 15-30 minutes outdoors at midday.

Cell death or apoptosis, the body's way of killing off DNA-damaged cells, was observed in all three groups. But the group of mice that drank caffeine and exercised had a 400 per cent increase in cell death, versus 120 per cent for the exercisers and 95 per cent increase for the caffeine drinkers.

The studies, conducted in the Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research at Rutgers' Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, will appear in the July 31 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They follow previous studies that showed both caffeine and exercise in isolation inhibited ultraviolet light-induced skin cancer. Caffeine has been linked to a reduction in liver cancer and breast cancer, and exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of colon cancer, among others.

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I LIKE this study!

yes good news!!!

You still need to exercise... right???

or if we just nibble on mocha chocolate bars whilst rushing to work... would that be enough???

pretty happy about the caffine part....but the exercise part puts me off haha.

Ihave a friend who developed skin cancer. She used to drink a pot of coffee a day and almost a 6-pack of diet soft drink but never exercised. I think exercise is the key word here, but maybe caffeine AND exercise go hand in hand.

I wonder if she would have had the same benefits with Water and Exercise.

*scratching head* hmmmmm

The caffeine part is good news [as I take a typing break to take a swig of Red Bull] I heard chocolate is a cancer-fighting agent too.

I knew it all along.

I heard a doctor say once that cancer is developed in large part by an unclean bloodstream. If this is true, then I think water may be the leading factor in a lifestyle which may not lead to cancer.

Hey maybe we should combine lots of water, in addition to caffeine and regular exercise.

I drink a tonne of water, since it is the healthiest drink there is for you, and was trying to avoid coffee, even though I love it. Now I don't have to!!! LOL.
Actually, Isis2200, if anything it was the diet pop that hurt your friend. The fake sugars are really walloping our bodies and the health problems that have arisen from people who drink them regularly are staggering. If Aspartame can cause birth defects in babies, you think that it couldn't have contributed to your friends cancers?

ahh water and chocolate lol can't eat the latter but i drink at least a gallon and a half a day

can't eat chocolate!?!? Ugh! That would be so hard for me. That is my one weakness....ok, my biggest weakness

Same here. i drink between 2 and 4 litres of water a day.. mm lovley and cold and great for the skin. and for flushing any toxins out.

I have a cup of coffee, sometimes two first thing in the morning. Then water all day, once in a while some juice, but the sugar content in juice, yes even unsweetened is pretty high. I had actually read that a cup of cocoa first thing in the morning is a great way to kick start the metabolism. But, water, yes the best thing you can drink.

i drink coffee and exercise but i dont ever get any sun

Coffee (caffeine) has always been popular in the gym, helps you recover quicker and burns fat, Drinking more water than you need just passes through the body, a lot of bottled water is drunk in the UK but tap water is healthier, evian is naive backwards

One should always remember drinking too much water that has little impurities is very bad for you. It cleans your body of needed -- whats that stuff they put in Gator Aid? -- minerals. Also salt is very very important for you if your doing things that cause you to sweat and/or over heat. Corporate America has given out some very bad ideas in an attempt to sell products. All animals die if they don't get enough salt. Some people are salt reactive and have blood pressure related problems that can be aggravated by salt, some people retain water and swell up when they take too much salt. and many people that have systems that have no problem with salt but have the idea that salt is bad, so they severely limit their salt intake are making themselves sick. Salt is very important. So is a certain amount and type of fat.

I'm glad that coffee is now being recognized as a health benefit, that's why I normally drink about 20 cups a day.
I also smoke about two packs of cigarettes a day, I just know any day now a good report is coming out about smoking.

So basically, if I were to start working out, I could live forever? I am MISTER CAFFINE!

3,500 posts, Yea me!

I love coffee, but i have to drink decaf because i,m an insomniac, but i take a lot of tylenol with codine and that has tons of cafeen in it. I LOVE chocolate and i have been addicted to excersize,but chronic pain keeps me from over doing it now. But i absolutly detest water by it,s self! It doesn,t matter where it comes from, tap,bottled or whatever. To me water tates exactly like what a wet dog smells like! So when i drink it i,ve got to force myself, i,m always getting dehydrated but i just can,t stand it! As a kid i loved it and couldn,t drink enough but now i just wish i could stick an I.V. in me and fill er up! becauase it,s that gross to me.

Congrats, LU!!!!

Oh, I was on Tylenol with codeine, then I found out what that does to your liver and quit taking any pain killer unless I am getting one of my migraines. Tylenol (acetaminophen) and Advil ( ibuprofen) are incredibly bad for you.

huh, extremly interesting...this sounds too weird to be true
i bet ya in a couple of years, they are gonna come back and out and say "Nope, we were wrong, it is actually this..." Like they did so many other times before...

I think a word that should be sued here is moderation. Most things are not bad for you, in moderation, but you go overboard with ingesting any one thing, and you could end up with some health problems.

That being said, no one said that you only ingest chocolate, there are chocolate skin creams and scrubs, the caffeine in them as well as the antioxidants are supposed to be awesome for the skin.

the concept seems to be very good but it would be still more better when given those statestical datas....