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New Study Links Caffeinated Coffee To Vision Loss
dsinc writes "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 (abstract), the leading cause of secondary glaucoma worldwide. '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.'"
Good for you... Coffee is bad for you... Coffee is good for you... Coffee is bad for you...
Coffee is making me sea sick.
It may be that people whose genetics predispose them to exfoliation glaucoma are also more than usually enchanted by coffee. Still, interesting observation.
So, does this mean it's time to start evaluating a possible reason?
I ask because I love my coffee. Seriously, I'm stupid for it... But the last thing I need is another activity that supposedly makes me go blind...
Geez. To me this is kind of like in the movie "The Jerk" when the crazy guy is trying to kill Steve Martin's character by shooting him from across the road with a rifle and Martin concludes that the guy has a problem with cans and he's actually attacking the cans, which just happen to also be everywhere Steve is.
Scandinavian people are more blue eyed than most ethnic groups and it's been known for years that blue eyed people may be more sensitive to vision problems caused by sunlight. It could also be that for some reason (ozone depletion?) that Scandinavia gets stronger sunlight than other regions. If they want to convince me that there is something to do this, show me a study in Brazil where there aren't very many blue eyed people and they drink a lot of coffee too.
Just don't masturbate into your coffee.
From the abstract:
Compared with participants whose cumulatively updated total caffeine consumption was <125 mg/day, participants who consumed 500 mg/day had a trend toward increased risk of EG/EGS that was not statistically significant (RR = 1.43; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.98–2.08); P trend = 0.06).
If it's not statistically significant, then how can we take this seriously?
Someone should read the article a little better instead of posting some inflaming title... FTFA, "participants who consumed 500 mg/day had a trend toward increased risk of EG/EGS that was not statistically significant". Notice the "not statistically significant" part? Also, " We did not find associations with consumption of other caffeinated products". Way to panic!
So in the last 6-12 months coffee and red wine have been show to prevent pretty much everything -- heart disease, dementia, hypertension, aging etc.
Pop science is so tiring. Fact is all of these studies are incredibly dependent on the population.
The only thing know for sure is living is hazardous to your health...
For 80k women, there were a total 360 cases (.45%).
The increase was higher for women in families who already had a history of glaucoma.
The link was specific to caffeinated coffee and wasn't found for other products (Tea, Chocolate, decaffeinated coffee)
There was a tiny statistically significant increase compared to abstainers.
I.e. take those 360 cases, and say there were 160 cases among abstainers and 200 cases among caffeinated coffee drinkers. So the actual increased number of cases due to drinking caffeinated coffee in the population of 80k women may have been something like .05%. This is a rough swag. The actual increase was:
"increased risk of EG/EGS (RR = 1.66; 95% CI, 1.09â"2.54; P trend = 0.02)"
So give up a lifetime of drinking coffee, the other benefits of drinking coffee in return for reducing your risk of Glaucoma very very slightly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
No, it means that you should stop reading dumb clinical articles taken out of context on Slashdot.
This is just one of those hundreds of thousands of medical articles trawling the data for a correlation so somebody can chase after another grant. According to TFA, they reviewed records of almost 79000 people and came up with 360 cases of this particular form of glaucoma. Then they take the self reported caffeine intake, adjust for 'other confounders' (waves hands) and come up with a weak (Relative Risk 1.4) association that is barely statistically significant and likely not clinically significant at all.
Hrumphh. Not impressed
(Goes back to quaffing his Nuclear Waste level caffeinated beverage)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So tea is still safe. Now if only there was a safe alternative to masturbation I wouldn't have to worry about my vision at all.
Sorry, their conclusions are just not statistically justified.
Let me review what they found:
Compared total caffeine consumption of less than 125 mg/day to greater than 500 mg/day: no significant result
Compared abstain from caffeinated coffee to greater than 3 cups of caffeinated coffee daily: glaucoma relative risk in the interval 1.09 to 2.54
Compared consumption of (caffeinated soda, caffeinated tea, decaffeinated coffee or chocolate) to non-consumers of same: no significant result
That relative risk that they quote as being significant has a confidence interval with a lower end of 1.09; which is only barely above 1.0 (1.0= no effect). So, they studied one particular variety of one particular minor disease (of many health effects). Finding one effect at a trivial level is meaningless.
Ob xkcd: http://xkcd.com/882/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It's all fatal. Some faster than others, I admit, but everyone eventually becomes infirm and dies and causality is pretty firm linked to existing in the world and doing things.
So, can we have good regulators to worry about stuff like Chromium in tap water and just start ignoring the really subtle stuff?
Doctors, can you please clarify this? Eating breakfast is becoming a terrifying experience. (Circle all that apply)
Coffee is good / bad for you.
Eggs are good / bad for you.
The healthier topping for my toast is butter(which has lots of saturated fat) / margarine(which is trans fat) .
I anticipate the stories of how whole wheat toast is secretly the cause of cancer.