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| October 5, 2012 |
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Coffee Linked to Vision Loss
by Lisa Collier Cool A new Harvard study has discovered a high incidence of vision
problems among men and women who drank three or more cups of coffee a
day. The research, published in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science,
linked heavy consumption of caffeinated coffee with increased
likelihood of developing exfoliation glaucoma, an eye disorder that
affects about 10 percent of adults over age 50 and can lead to vision
loss or blindness.
Specifically, the researchers reported that adults who drank three or cups of coffee daily were 34 percent more likely to develop exfoliation glaucoma, compared to those who abstained from coffee. Women with a family history of glaucoma were at the highest risk, with their threat of exfoliation glaucoma soaring by 66 percent if they quaffed three or more cups of java per day.
Here’s a closer look at the study and what it means for coffee-lovers.
Coffee: The Original Wonder Drug?
Think of the eye as a sink in which the faucet is always running and the drain is always open. A tiny gland behind the iris produces fluid to nourish the cornea and lens, then the fluid flows out of the eye through spongy tissue called the trabecular network, explains the Glaucoma Foundation.
Exfoliation glaucoma, sometimes called “exfoliation syndrome,” is marked by tiny, dandruff-like flakes building up on the lens of the eye. The flakes are rubbed off as the lens of the iris (colored part of the eye) moves, causing the spongy tissue that normally serves as the eye’s drain to get clogged. The result is increased pressure, sometimes very high pressure, inside the eye. The cause of exfoliation glaucoma is unknown, but genetics appear to play a role.
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The researchers looked at men and women ages 40 or older who did not have glaucoma at the start of the study, and had received eye exams from 1980 (for women in the NHS) or 1986 (for men in the HPFS) to 2008. The study looked at health questionnaires the participants filled out about consumption of caffeinated drinks, including coffee, and their medical records (to identify cases of exfoliation glaucoma).
The analysis showed a significant rise in incidences of exfoliation glaucoma among people who drank three or more cups of coffee, but no link between drinking other caffeinated beverages, such as soda or tea.
"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 [another form of the disease], we conducted this study to evaluate whether the risk of exfoliation glaucoma…may be different by coffee consumption,” Kang added.
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“If [the findings are] confirmed,” she told HealthDay News, “those at risk of exfoliation glaucoma—particularly those with a family history of glaucoma—would be recommended to limit their intake [of coffee] to less than three cups per day.”
Several eye experts say that they’re not cutting down on java—at least not yet, because this type of study is not designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Therefore, variables other than drinking large amounts of caffeinated coffee may explain the apparent association with glaucoma.
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Screening is particularly crucial if you have any of these risk factors, says the Glaucoma Foundation:
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Specifically, the researchers reported that adults who drank three or cups of coffee daily were 34 percent more likely to develop exfoliation glaucoma, compared to those who abstained from coffee. Women with a family history of glaucoma were at the highest risk, with their threat of exfoliation glaucoma soaring by 66 percent if they quaffed three or more cups of java per day.
Here’s a closer look at the study and what it means for coffee-lovers.
Coffee: The Original Wonder Drug?
What is exfoliation glaucoma?
Glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness in the world, affects 60 million people. It is a group of painless diseases that can damage the optic nerve, if untreated. Typically, this damage results from increased pressure within the eye, usually due to fluid buildup.Think of the eye as a sink in which the faucet is always running and the drain is always open. A tiny gland behind the iris produces fluid to nourish the cornea and lens, then the fluid flows out of the eye through spongy tissue called the trabecular network, explains the Glaucoma Foundation.
Exfoliation glaucoma, sometimes called “exfoliation syndrome,” is marked by tiny, dandruff-like flakes building up on the lens of the eye. The flakes are rubbed off as the lens of the iris (colored part of the eye) moves, causing the spongy tissue that normally serves as the eye’s drain to get clogged. The result is increased pressure, sometimes very high pressure, inside the eye. The cause of exfoliation glaucoma is unknown, but genetics appear to play a role.
5 Secrets to Preserving Your Eyesight
How was the study conducted?
The Harvard study was the first to link heavy coffee consumption and glaucoma risk in Americans by analyzing data from nearly 79,000 women in the well-known Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and more than 42,000 men in the Health Professionals Followup Study (HPFS).The researchers looked at men and women ages 40 or older who did not have glaucoma at the start of the study, and had received eye exams from 1980 (for women in the NHS) or 1986 (for men in the HPFS) to 2008. The study looked at health questionnaires the participants filled out about consumption of caffeinated drinks, including coffee, and their medical records (to identify cases of exfoliation glaucoma).
The analysis showed a significant rise in incidences of exfoliation glaucoma among people who drank three or more cups of coffee, but no link between drinking other caffeinated beverages, such as soda or tea.
The Scandinavian Link
"Scandinavian populations have the highest frequencies of exfoliation syndrome and glaucoma," author Jae Hee Kang, ScD, of Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Science Daily."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 [another form of the disease], we conducted this study to evaluate whether the risk of exfoliation glaucoma…may be different by coffee consumption,” Kang added.
Watch Out For These 8 Dangerous Ingredients
Should you cut down on coffee?
As I’ve reported previously, coffee has a number of health perks, including reducing risk for superbug infections, diabetes, strokes, and breast and prostate cancer. Kang emphasizes that further study is necessary to find direct evidence that heavy consumption of caffeinated coffee is indeed a risk factor for exfoliation glaucoma.“If [the findings are] confirmed,” she told HealthDay News, “those at risk of exfoliation glaucoma—particularly those with a family history of glaucoma—would be recommended to limit their intake [of coffee] to less than three cups per day.”
Several eye experts say that they’re not cutting down on java—at least not yet, because this type of study is not designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Therefore, variables other than drinking large amounts of caffeinated coffee may explain the apparent association with glaucoma.
10 Ways to Beat Fatigue That Are Safer than Caffeine
Who is at risk for glaucoma?
Because glaucoma is painless, many people don’t know they have it until irreversible vision impairment occurs. To detect it in the early, treatable stages, the Mayo Clinic recommends getting a comprehensive eye exam every three to five years starting at 40 and annually starting at 60.Screening is particularly crucial if you have any of these risk factors, says the Glaucoma Foundation:
- Being over 60. You are six times more likely to develop glaucoma if you’re older than 60.
- Family history. Having close relatives with glaucoma multiples your risk by four to nine times.
- Steroid medication use. One study found that heavy use of inhaled steroids for asthma boosted glaucoma risk by 40 percent.
- Ethnicity. African-Americans are six to eight times more likely to develop glaucoma than Caucasians. People of Hispanic ancestry are also at higher risk.
- Eye injury. Blunt injuries that “bruise” the eye can lead to glaucoma, either soon after the injury or years later. Use protective eyewear for activities that may cause eye injury, such as sports like boxing or baseball, or using power tools.
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Related Topics
Get the information you need to improve your health and wellness on Healthline.com.
Psoriasis Overview. Learn how to recognize and treat the symptoms of psoriasis.Common Fall Allergens & How to Fight Them. Learn how to stage an attack against common autumn allergies.The Worst Fitness Trends of All Time. Learn about some of the more interesting ways people have tried to stay in shape.A Guide to Cholesterol-Free Foods. Find delicious ways to keep cholesterol off your plate and out of your heart.How to Avoid a Migraine Before it Happens. Find out what your weaknesses are to avoid feeling the pain.More Resources: BodyMaps for iPad...Gluten-Free Hair Products...Depressed After a Nap?...Knee Pain Assessment
Speedy Star Swoops In Perilously Close to Milky Way's Giant Black Hole
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| The orbits of stars within the central arcsecond of our
galaxy. In the background, the central portion of a diffraction-limited
image taken in 2012 is displayed. Image released October 4, 2012. CREDIT: Andrea Ghez and research team at UCLA/data sets obtained with W. M. Keck Telescopes |
Astronomers have found a star that breaks speed records as it orbits the Milky Way's central black hole, covering 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) per second as it whips around the black hole in less than a dozen years.
The discovery offers scientists a unique chance within the decade to test Einstein's theory of relativity in an extreme environment.
The star is named S0-102. It's one of a class of "S-stars" that surround the center of the sun's home galaxy in a kind of spherical shell. It has an orbital period of 11.5 years, give or take 3 1/2 months, making it the shortest-period star ever found in the region. The previous record was set by S0-2, which has a 16-year period.
The presence of two short-period stars means astronomers can look at the precession (change in orientation) of their orbits over time and use that information to learn how much space has been curved by the immense gravity of the galaxy's central black hole, which weighs in at 4 million times the sun's mass.
Such tests have been done before. The most famous study looked at the movement of the planet Mercury around the sun. Astronomers of the 19th century noticed Mercury's orbit was precessing more than could be accounted for by Newton's theory of gravity. At first they proposed the presence of another planet inside Mercury's orbit, but in the early 20th century Einstein was able to use his theory of relativity to predict exactly how much "extra" precession should happen as a result of space being curved by the sun's gravity, forcing the planet into a different path. [Photos: Black Holes of the Universe]
Other similar observations have been made of pairs of dense objects called neutron stars. However, because these stars can be only up to three times as massive as the sun, they don't curve space-time much more than the warping scientists see in the solar neighborhood.
Thus, studying the space-time around the Milky Way's gigantic black hole should offer an unprecedented test.
"This is the same idea in an unexplored parameter space," said Andrea Ghez, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the leaders of the research team that found S0-102. "We know relativity breaks down on a small scale. We want to get as close to the event horizon as possible."
The event horizon around a black hole is the point of no return — the closest anything can come without falling in.
The stars S0-102 and S0-2 appear to get fairly close. Their orbits are so near the central black hole that the effects of space-time curvature should be clearly visible. And the presence of these two short-period stars will allow observers to measure the local space-time curvature far more accurately than one star would.
The duo also helps astronomers take into account the fact that the gravitational mass of the central black hole isn't a perfect point; there are lots of other objects, such as remnants of dead stars, in the region that can cloud the observations.
"Close" though, is a relative term. A 4 million solar-mass black hole has a radius of about 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers). The closest S0-102 gets is 260 times the distance between the Earth and the sun, or about five times the distance between the sun and Pluto at its farthest.
One of the unique things about S0-102 is astronomers have observed its orbit through one complete circuit. It last made its closest approach (periapse) to the central black hole in 2009, and should make another in 2020. Meanwhile, S0-2, the other record-holder, will reach periapse in 2018 or 2019. That's when it will be possible to measure their orbital precessions.
Another test of relativity will be the stars' gravitational red shift. Light traveling from a star in a region of very curved space-time should be shifted from what one might expect in normal space. With two stars to observe, both of them reaching periapse in the next 10 years, researchers hope to get an accurate measurement.
S0-102 was found by the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Using adaptive optics, which correct for the blurriness caused by the Earth's atmosphere, the telescope made observations in long-wavelength infrared light that allowed the detection of S0-102 and other nearby stars. But to make some of the measurements to test relativity, scientists will need a new generation of instruments, including the huge Thirty Meter Telescope under construction in Hawaii.
Few scientists expect the laws of relativity to be altered much by new observations. Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, curator-in-charge at the astrophysics department of the American Museum of Natural History, said it's very unlikely. "Relativity has survived every test we've thrown at it," he said. "The excitement here is that it's a way of testing relativity in a way that hasn't been tested before."
Ghez, too, doesn't expect to see Einstein challenged. But she noted that it wasn't that long ago astronomers doubted stars could even survive so close to the galactic center. "Everything has taught us to expect surprises," she said.
The findings are reported in a paper published in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Science.
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
The
two W. M. Keck Telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, observing the galactic
center. The lasers are used to create an artificial star in Earth's
upper atmosphere, which is then employed to measure the blurring effects
of the lower atmosphere (the effect that makes the stars twinkle in the
night sky). The blurring gets corrected in real time with the help of a
deformable mirror. This is the so-called adaptive optics technique.
Image released October 4, 2012.
CREDIT: Ethan Tweedie Photography
CREDIT: Ethan Tweedie Photography
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