SEATTLE – Aug. 22, 2001 (cancerfacts.com) -- Drinking hot black tea may protect against skin cancer, according to results of the first large-scale clinical study to investigate the potential of tea and citrus peel to prevent skin cancer in humans.

The results show that iced black tea alone produced no significant protection against skin cancer, the addition of orange or lemon peel, however, may reduce the risk.

With 1.2 million cases of non-melanoma skin cancer reported in the United States alone each year, this could be good news for tea drinkers.

The research team led by Dr. Iman Hakim, of the University of Arizona, published its results in the August online issue of BMC Dermatology showing that people who consumed the most hot black tea reduced their risk of skin cancer by one-third compared to people who did not drink hot black tea.

"These results indicate that both citrus peel use and strong (hot) black tea have independent potential protective effects in relation to non-melanoma skin cancer," the researchers wrote.

The study done in Arizona, which has some of the highest levels of skin cancer in the US, analyzed a subset of 450 patients who had participated in a larger Southeastern Arizona Health Study (SEAHS) aimed at examining a variety of environmental and lifestyle factors associated with skin cancer.

Of these 450 people, 234 had been diagnosed with skin cancer within the previous four months, and 187 were people who did not have skin cancer.

Both groups were interviewed about their consumption of tea and citrus peel, which is commonly added to tea in North America. After adjusting for such factors as age, amount of time spent in the sun each day, freckles on the arm and other variables associated with skin cancer risk, the researchers found that people who developed skin cancer drank significantly less hot tea than those healthy individuals.

Among both groups, 64 percent reported drinking tea in the past year and 34.5 percent reported consuming citrus peel. Among the people without cancer, 35.7 percent drank hot tea, compared to 26 percent of those who had skin cancer. Similarly, 39 percent of those without cancer consumed citrus peel while 30 percent of the cancer patients did.

Exactly how tea or citrus peel might provide a protection from skin cancer is not known, however, one theory points to an association between oxidative damage to cells associated with skin cancer and other chronic diseases. Black tea is a good source of anti-oxidants and the addition of lemon to tea may increase its anti-oxidant potential.

BMC Dermatology is a peer-reviewed online journal providing free access to research articles. The full article is available online, at the Biomedcentral Web site.

SOURCE: BMC Dermatology (2001) :3, 1

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