Caffeine And Dry Eye

It makes sense to me that hydration status is important to dry eye status. I often encourage patients to make sure that they are drinking water as part of a comprehensive approach to dry eye. As caffeine is a diuretic, its use doesn’t seem to be compatible with dry eye.

In the February 2023 edition of the Journal Cornea, Morten Magno et al. investigated the connection between caffeine and dry eye based on a population in the Netherlands. Surprisingly, they found that caffeine intake was not a risk factor for dry eye in their study population. Even more surprisingly, they found that decaffeinated coffee intake was associated with a higher risk of dry eye.

Given that this is a population wide cohort study, I take the results with a grain of salt. However, I do find this to be an interesting finding to mull over.