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is the caffeine thing true?


richbyers

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does caffeine reduce night vision?
Well, personally I've never noticed any bad effects and I've never, ever heard anyone make those sorts of claims before. I'd love to see what evidence AN has to support this claim - it sounds a lot like "anti-carrots" :(.

In fact, far from reducing night vision, there are some websites that claim caffeine actually dilates the pupil. If that's true, it would make your eyes more sensitive to light.

ref: http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090516024424AArHEM7

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After viewing fine detail on mars and saturn last night-ice cap and dark and light high and lowlands of mars and then the wonderfully stunning rings of saturn, cassini division and bands on saturn along with 4 moons.... and the wonderfull venus and the moon unable to outshine the nearby stars and a setting Jupiter looking pale... also bagged m42orion, m43orionv2, m45plaides and the beehive(forgot what messier beehive is)

... AND all after around 6 cups of coffee....strong coffee...

I would say this is not quite true but more a scaremongering technique by doctors.

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Strike one: Nicotine slows and can eventually stop the production of rhodopsin in the human eye. Rhodopsin is crucial to night vision because it is the chemical pigment responsible for your ability to adapt to the dark and process the color purple.

Strike two: Rhodopsin, also known as visual purple, is the pigment in your retina responsible for the formation of the photocreceptor cells. In the absence of light, your eyes search for the color purple.

Strike three: You can’t see at night without rhodopsin.

Source - Tobacco and Your Vision: Who Turned Off the Lights? ! Quit Tobacco?Make Everyone Proud

Another good read - Night Vision - The Red Myth

Another good read - The Effects of Smoking/Nicotine on Night Vision - a.a. lade, 2004

The effects of smoking tobacco products on night vision are controversial. Early studies showed a significant decrease in scotopic dark adaptation with smoking, which was attributed to the hypoxic effects of carbon monoxide (CO). Later studies found that smoking seemingly improved night visual performance on some psychophysical tests. This improvement was presumed to be a result of the stimulant effect of nicotine. More recent studies have reported that smokers have reduce mesopic vision when compared with nonsmokers.
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Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor - it causes your blood vessels to contract. However, most vasoconstrictors also cause pupil dilation. Unless it's significantly affecting the blood flow to, and the efficiency of, the retina I'd say it's untrue.

I'd be far more concerned about the reduced concentration/attention span and the potential for the shakes that excessive caffeine can induce :(

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Well, I've just been for an eye test. My first ever "proper" one. Amongst all the other things I've been told are wrong with my eyes, apparently I may have increased intra-ocular pressure in my right (dominant) eye, which may be indicative of glaucoma so I need a referral to check it checked over properly. One of the dietary contributors to increased intra-ocular pressure is apparently caffeine which, given the usual level of my coffee intake, is news about as welcome as a case of rampaging trots in a space suit :(

James

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I'm 13 months without taking a caffeinated beverage or foodstuff. I was getting terrible migraines, and it was suggested to cut the caffeine as a test. I found that I still got the same number of migraines, but the overall depth and pain level of the migraines was reduced a lot..

It sucks, as I love real proper coffee and I love the popular cola soft drinks too.. My espresso machine (with real steam pressure) has not lain idle though. I've found a decaff espresso that is close enough to the real thing to be worth the effort of making it!

I haven't noted any improvement in my dark adaptation, but the weather and light pollution affects that. I haven't had a cigarette in over 5 years. I'm running out of vices that keep me happy....

Caffeine-free is hard to do when I'm working as a Unix admin 4 evenings a week till 01.30, and doing a full-time masters in network security during the week. It's possible, just hard.

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