Overview

• The study analyzed genetic and health records from over 500,000 UK Biobank and Finngen participants to evaluate coffee consumption and age-related macular degeneration outcomes.
• Participants genetically predisposed to consume instant coffee faced nearly a sevenfold higher risk of developing dry AMD compared with other coffee drinkers.
• Scientists suggest that processing byproducts in instant coffee, including acrylamide and oxidized lipids, may accumulate over time and damage retinal tissue.
• No association was observed between any form of coffee intake and wet AMD, the less common but more aggressive variant of the disease.
• Lead author Siwei Liu’s team plans replication studies in independent populations and functional experiments to probe causal pathways linking instant coffee to macular damage.