Blinded by the brew?
Whether you’re a latte lover, a mocha monster or an espresso elitist — people have strong preferences when it comes to coffee.
But what if we told you your choice of java wasn’t simply a matter of taste?
An eye-opening study — published recently in the journal Food Science & Nutrition — found that drinking instant coffee may dramatically increase your risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness.
Researchers analyzed data from over 500,000 participants in the UK Biobank and discovered that instant coffee drinkers with a certain genetic predisposition were 700% more likely to develop dry AMD, the more common — and currently incurable — form of the disease.
“This genetic overlap suggests that there may be shared biological pathways or metabolic mechanisms connecting the preference for instant coffee with the risk of developing dry AMD,” Dr. Siwei Liu, a researcher in the Department of Ophthalmology for Shiyan Taihe Hospital at Hubei University of Medicine in China, told Medical News Today.
“It provides new insight into AMD pathogenesis and offers a potential direction for personalized prevention strategies, such as gene-informed lifestyle interventions.”
Dry AMD affects the macula, a small region in the back of the retina responsible for central vision.
As the damage progresses, people may experience blurry spots, difficulty reading and, eventually, a permanent loss of vision.
While risk factors like age and genetics are beyond our control, lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise and smoking play a role. Researchers are now adding coffee preference to the list.
Liu noted that AMD is a leading cause of vision loss among older people in industrialized nations, which is why recognizing and managing lifestyle factors is important for slowing disease progression, preserving vision and improving quality of life.
The findings suggest that, when it comes to eyesight, all coffee is certainly not created equal.
“Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages worldwide and is rich in polyphenols and antioxidants that may offer neuroprotective effects,” Liu told Medical News Today.
“At the same time, growing evidence shows that genetics influence dietary preferences. Studying the genetic predisposition to coffee consumption and its relationship with AMD risk may help reveal potential causal links between diet and eye diseases.”
Liu’s team plans to validate these findings in other populations, dig deeper into the metabolic pathways and figure out whether instant coffee is directly affecting the mechanisms behind AMD.
“We also aim to perform longitudinal cohort analyses to clarify the causal relationship between coffee intake and AMD progression,” she said.
