Science Daily: Caffeinated Coffee Linked to Vision Loss

Caffeinated Coffee Linked to Vision Loss

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121003132012.htm

http://www.iovs.org/content/49/5/1924.long

The second link above is the actual study...(maybe someone here understands it)


ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2012) — A new study suggests caffeinated coffee drinkers should limit their intake to reduce their chances of developing vision loss or blindness. According to a scientific paper in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, heavy caffeinated coffee consumption is associated with an increased risk of developing exfoliation glaucoma, the leading cause of secondary glaucoma worldwide.

The study, The Relation between Caffeine and Coffee Consumption and Exfoliation Glaucoma or Glaucoma Suspect: A Prospective Study in Two Cohorts, is the first to examine the link between caffeinated coffee and exfoliation glaucoma in a U.S. -based population.

"Scandinavian populations have the highest frequencies of exfoliation syndrome and glaucoma," said author, Jae Hee Kang, ScD, of Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass. "Because Scandinavian populations also have the highest consumption of caffeinated coffee in the world, and our research group has previously found that greater caffeinated coffee intake was associated with increased risk of primary open-angle glaucoma, we conducted this study to evaluate whether the risk of exfoliation glaucoma or glaucoma suspect may be different by coffee consumption."

The study was composed of two cohorts: 78,977 women from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and 41,202 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) who were at least 40 years of age, did not have glaucoma and reported undergoing eye examinations from 1980 (for NHS participants) and 1986 (for HPFS participants) to 2008. The research team used questionnaires to obtain and validate the consumption of beverages containing cafeine and reviewed medical records to determine incident cases of exfoliation glaucoma, which contributes to elevated pressure sufficient enough to damage the optic nerve, or exfoliation glaucoma suspect that have milder or only suspect optic nerve damage.
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While I do not know much about coffee, I have read about the "Nurses Health Study" If the research tecniques of this study are correct, (no, I do not know about these researchers either) then this a very important study..Why? ..this is not a few hundred patients at some obsucure hospital. The Nurses Health Study is one of the most complete, if not the most inclusive study over time ever done.

That is where we have found out that 30 minutes a day of moderate exercize, can be almost as healthy as an hour of very strenuous exercize, (for the heart) and that can even be cut into 2 parts, 15 minutes each.. They found that people who did this moderate exercize, lived just about as long as those that did vigorous..if it was 5 days a week over many years.....We are talking about tens of thousands in the study..

Therefore, if there is proof that 3 cups of caffeinated coffee (about 450 mg of caffeine) increases the risk of a kind of glaucoma among a reasonably large percent of people, then there is proof.