Absolutely yes. I have only a cup of coffee (or the equivalent caffeine via tea) per day and get killer headaches if I skip a day. Whether this is okay or not, I'm not sure. I usually see articles saying three or four hundred milligrams is okay, but that seems like a lot to me (that's a few cups a day depending on how you measure your cups).
> You sound like an addict just since you're talking quantities of caffeine.
I might have misunderstood what you were trying to say. If I did, I apologise in advance:
Because I get a day-long headache whenever I don't drink a caffeinated beverage for a day or so, I know that I'm a caffeine addict.
Speaking about volumes of ingestible substances with somewhat-known properties to provide a general idea of how much of a thing one is ingesting doesn't mean that one is an addict; it means that one is interested in attempting to convey information somewhat precisely. If you don't specify things in known quantities, you're left with vague and imprecise descriptors like "some", "not much", and "a lot".
> For healthy adults, the FDA says 400 mg a day is OK. But consuming much more than that can have dangerous, negative effects. And the milligrams add up quickly. A medium-size coffeehouse coffee can contain more than 300 mg, and most 16-ounce energy drinks contain between 160 and 240 mg of caffeine…
3-4 cups might be on the high end of the safe spectrum, depending on what your idea of a "cup" is. (For the record, 3 half-litre beer steins of coffee a day turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea, even if hearing colours was briefly entertaining.)
That's about 1000mg of caffeine a day. A gram a day is diminishing returns for the average coffee drinker, and may signal addiction. Addiction is dangerous in itself, so we might explain the outrageous results of this study in that way. A lifetime on the edge is a recipe for disaster!
> Scientists think that up to 400 milligrams of caffeine–the equivalent of roughly four cups of coffee–is probably safe for most healthy adults.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a lot? I don't want to argue against this. When I was doing my bachelor's I pulled all nighters with one or two 500ml Monster energy drinks which is ~320mg max. Of course all nighters are not healthy but I was mostly worried about the caffeine intake.
That’s a lot of caffeine - doesn’t really change the study but also makes it hard infer anything about 1 cup a day. It’s like 4-5 decent sized cups of coffee worth.
Actually it’s also beyond what the fda recommends. “ For healthy adults, the FDA has cited 400 milligrams a day—that's about four or five cups of coffee—as an amount not generally associated with dangerous, negative effects”
But going to a bit of an extreme makes sense for an early study. If they didn’t see anything with the high caffeine intake, then a low intake would be definitely no noticeable effect. With some effect seen at high doses, now further study should be done.
“ 20 young healthy non-smokers (age: 26.4 ± 4.0 years; body mass index: 22.7 ± 1.4 kg/m2; and habitual caffeine intake: 474.1 ± 107.5 mg/day) in a 10-day caffeine (150 mg × 3 times/day), a 10-day placebo (3 times/day), and a withdrawal condition (9-day caffeine followed by 1-day placebo)”
>Even more frightening is how easy it is to take too much pure caffeine. One brand recommended that consumers use a “1/32 teaspoon” to measure a safe amount. For comparison, a “pinch” of salt is generally considered to be one-sixteenth of a teaspoon.
If I were going to do something like that I'd dissolve a teaspoon in two gallons of water and use a cup.
Caffeine is one of those drugs that can sneak up on you. LD 50 is actually pretty high - it's usually quoted as 75-100 cups of coffee in an adult. The problem is the curve is wider than most drugs. Some people can handle truly massive amounts, but you're on the other side of the curve you can die from a comparatively small dose.
> Is this a feedback loop? We keep increasing caffeine content because we need more for our beverages to have the desired effect for customers?
Tolerance, or physical addiction is exactly that. A given dose is less effective after a certain amount of repeated use and a larger dose is required for the same effect. Not using the drug at all may cause withdrawal symptoms.
>the health risks of low doses of adderall were smaller than those of high doses of caffeine.
I hadn't seen that before, so thank you!
I ran into this same thing accidentally, I was regularly 'overdosing' on caffeine by drinking 300 - 400mg of caffeine per day in college.
The safe dosage is ~200mg for an adult if I recall, but I can only do about 100 - 125mg absolute max or my heart starts pounding. I am not sure if this lowered limit is due to 'abuse' or if I also have different caffeine metabolization. I will have to take a look at my data.
Absolutely yes. I have only a cup of coffee (or the equivalent caffeine via tea) per day and get killer headaches if I skip a day. Whether this is okay or not, I'm not sure. I usually see articles saying three or four hundred milligrams is okay, but that seems like a lot to me (that's a few cups a day depending on how you measure your cups).
reply