Coffee May Tame the Redness of Rosacea

The title of this article is misleading. Researchers only say that the caffeine from coffee might be beneficial in preventing the onset of rosacea. I was diagnosed with Rosacea about a year ago and was told to avoid caffeine among other things by dermatologists who have experience with this disorder. By following my doctor's advice the awful breakouts have stopped. Why would I ever want to risk recurrence by listening to a slapdash study like this? As pointed out by other commenters - there were a lot of holes in this one. And we all know what kind of biases go on in research studies to get the results desired. Who sponsored this thing? Folgers?

The article discussed here is about PREVENTION of rosacea, not the treatment of the disorder. I love the website HealthNewsReview.org. They critically analyze health news in the popular media, and sadly the Times' Well feature often inaccurately summarizes academic research. Check out their opinion of this article: https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2018/10/can-coffee-tame-the-redness-of-...

WHAT!!!! the first thing the rosacea patient is told is to NOT drink or eat anything hot or cold...stick to tepid. And then, of course to use $50-$100/tube medication not covered (enough) by insurance ...

I’m a 67 year old man who has had Rosacea for about 20 years. It affected me by causing pimples on my forehead and sapping my self confidence. For years I tried everything imaginable to deal with it, from special cleansers to topical creams to blue light lasers, and including giving up coffee, shell fish, etc. Nothing worked. Then I went on Oracea two years ago. Immediately it all cleared up and has stayed clear ever since. And I went back to coffee, shell fish, etc.

I have rosacea but have never noticed any food or fluids I’ve consumed making it worse. Notwithstanding that, my rosecea used to be quite bad as my nose was chronically red. Antibiotics were marginally helpful. What really helped was vascular laser, delivered by a cosmetic physician. This not only took away the redness and veins but also facial swelling, which I actually didn’t know I had - it was measurable by its absence after the laser. I now have vascular laser every 18-24 months, which keeps it under control really well. I also apply Rosex (metronidazole) cream at night and on sunny days use a parasol that has about 99% blockout. Using the parasol significantly reduces the frequency of my need for vascular laser so it’s also a cost saver. If using a parasol is not possible, I ensure I apply sunscreen to my nose. With these measures my rosacea is totally under control and you would never know I have it.

Maybe people with rosecea drink less coffee because it aggravates it. Personally I find that alcohol bothers mine more than coffee. Having given up alcohol, as it turns me fluorescent red, I’m not quitting coffee.

I already have rosacea. Experience has revealed that my nose reddens after spicy foods, alcohol other than red wine, cold weather, etc. So, sometimes my nose is red but mostly it isn't. What's life for? Avoid X if you don't like its effect. Don't avoid it just because someone told you to.

this was a correlational study, which cannot prove causation, only that, in the authors' words, an "inverse relationship" was found between the two variables. It is possible that a third, unstudied variable is the real factor. Secondly, please note the limitations which the authors' acknowledge in the article: "Limitations..... First, data on lifetime diagnosis of rosacea and diagnosis year were self-reported in 2005 by participants, leaving our study prone to recall bias. ...However, we were only able to review the medical records for a small subset of cases to verify the accuracy of self-reported rosacea in the cohort. Efforts are warranted to better assess the accuracy of self-reported rosacea in the cohort. Second, caffeine intake, consumption of coffee and other beverages, was assessed in 4-year intervals. Third, etiologic heterogeneity may underlie different types of rosacea,...Fourth, although we had detailed data on many covariates, we cannot rule out the possibility of residual confounding from unmeasured confounders (such as family history, stress, heat, and hot beverages) or imperfectly measured confounders (as were adjusted for in our analyses). Compounds other than caffeine in the food and drinks investigated may influence risk of rosacea. Fifth, all participants were well-educated women, and most were white, which limits the generalizability of our findings." Not sure if this article constitutes anything but a count toward tenure for the authors.

After all these years of being made to feel guilty because I continued o drink coffee, I do feel somewhat vindicated. Since I no longer drink red wine, I have noticed a change for the better, even though I still eat spicy foods. Go figure.

Now I need them to tell me I should eat MORE spicy food, because I love it even more than my coffee. The advice I got was to avoid coffee and spices. Why does health advice chance so drastically from one day to the next?

I only developed rosacea after I took the antibiotic for H. pylori; I also developed wheat intolerance. Any further studies on the relationships between gut flora and inflammatory conditions?

I have Rosacea and never drank coffee but stared to the last 2 or 3 years 2 big mugs a day. Never put together the improvement of symptoms and coffee drinking, there may be something to it because nothing else ever worked this well.