喝咖啡不得皮膚癌嗎

Drinking coffee is associated with a slightly reduced risk for skin cancer, a new study has found.

一項新研究發現，喝咖啡能輕微降低患皮膚癌的風險。

Researchers used health and dietary data on 447,357 non-Hispanic whites ages 50 to 71 who were cancer free at the start of the study and followed them for an average of 10 years. Over the course of the study, the researchers identified 2,904 cases of melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

研究者們分析了447357名50至71歲的非西班牙裔白人的健康和飲食數據。研究開始時，這些人沒患任何癌症。在對他們進行跟蹤的平均十年時間裏，研究者們發現了2904個黑素瘤病例。黑素瘤是最嚴重的一種皮膚癌。

The more coffee consumed, the lower the risk. Drinking four or more cups of coffee was associated with a 20 percent risk reduction compared with those who drank none. The association did not hold for decaffeinated coffee or for melanoma in situ, melanoma in its earliest stages that affects only the top layer of skin.

咖啡喝得越多，患黑素瘤的風險就越低。與不喝咖啡相比，每天喝四杯以上（含四杯）咖啡能降低20%的風險。這種聯繫不適用於低因咖啡或原位黑素瘤，也就是最早期的黑素瘤，它隻影響皮膚表層。

While the results may be encouraging for coffee drinkers, “they do not indicate that anyone should change their coffee drinking preferences,” said the lead author, Erikka Loftfield, a graduate student at the Yale School of Public Health. “The most important thing a person can do to reduce risk is to reduce sun and ultraviolet light exposure.”

這項研究的主要作者艾麗卡·洛夫特菲爾德(Erikka Loftfield)說，雖然這一研究結果對咖啡飲用者具有鼓舞作用，但“並不是說人們應該改變自己的咖啡飲用習慣”，“要想降低風險，最重要的還是減少日曬和紫外線照射”。

The study, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, controlled for age, sex, education, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption and other health, behavioral and genetic factors, but the authors acknowledge that other unknown variables might help explain the association.

這項研究發表在美國《國家癌症研究所雜誌》(Journal of the National Cancer Institute)上。它控制了年齡、性別、教育背景、吸菸、鍛鍊、飲酒等健康、行爲和基因因素，但是作者們承認，其他未知的變量可能也能解釋這種聯繫。