A new study from published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reinforces previous research which shows that caffeine may be an effective tool in the fight against skin cancer, which is steadily on the rise in both the UK and USA.

The study used two groups of mice. One group was genetically modified to block a certain protein called ATR, the other was a control group. All mice were exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The researchers found that the genetically-modified mice remained tumor-free for significantly longer and after 19 weeks of UV exposure, had nearly 70 percent fewer tumors than the control group.

This is important because caffeine seems to inhibit the ATR kinase pathway, which plays a major role in how the body responds to DNA damage brought on by UV radiation – effectively, it allows cancer cells to multiply rather than die off.

Of course, it’s still important to wear your usual sunscreen, but it may be that there’ll be caffeine in your sun lotion in the near future.