Tasty Beverage Can Protect Your Skin From Cancer

Most of us know the best way to protect yourself against skin cancer is to cover up with sun protective clothing and wear sunscreen, but you may be able to drink your way to safer skin as well.

"The use of sunscreens to cover up the best that you can from the sun, the use of sun hats and sun protective clothing during the day, and try to avoid the sun during the hours of 10 in the morning to two in the afternoon when the sun intensity is the greatest outdoors - that in combination with drinking tea -- I think would be useful," says dermatologist Dr. Bryan Chen.

Drinking just one cup of tea a day will lower your risk of getting the two most common types of skin cancer, squamos and basal cell carcinoma, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology."Teas have long been known to contain antioxidants in them -- and also chemicals called polyfenals," says Dr. Chen.In the first human study of more than 2,000 people tea's antioxidants were found to limit the effects of the sun's ultraviolet rays. But Doctor Chen says tea isn't the cure all for skin cancer." Just because you drink tea doesn't mean it's a 100% protection against the development of skin cancer -- you really do need to do it in combination with other protective measures protect yourself from the sun.

"Scientists found the more tea you drink, each day and over the years, the better the skin protection. It doesn't matter if the tea is hot or cold, and all types of tea offered sun protection, including green, black and herbal tea.

NBC - Web Editor: Online Content Producer, Matt Bush