Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

newsroom.heart.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 27 posts

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#11

Post by pixel_popping »

ar_lan wrote: post #9
pixel_popping wrote: post #7

> However, higher amounts of caffeine, such as levels found in energy drinks including energy shots, may increase the risk of high blood pressure and/or irregular heart rhythm or arrhythmia. Energy drinks don't have much caffeine in them, way lower than almost any drink at Starbucks and so-on, it's exhausting to see this myth continuing especially when it's websites specialized in Health, I'm not saying energy drinks…

> Energy drinks don't have much caffeine in them I'm just pulling the most prominent ones at my nearest gas station: * Celsius: 200mg * Alani Nu: 200mg * Rockstar: 160mg * Monster: 160mg * Reign: 300mg * Bang: 300mg * Red Bull: 80mg * Ghost: 200mg * C4: 200mg * NOS: 160mg A standard soda can is about 35mg caffeine. I do not think it's a myth to claim that on average, energy drinks have a high amount of caffeine.

It's not high, as per the same article, drinking 2 of those a day would be fine right? The ones you've listed also are always the big cans (for most) which to be a fair comparison with commercial coffees would also be large jugs.

The comparison isn't versus Soda which are considered not caffeinated by most people but against regular coffees, commercial coffees specifically (as home-made energy drinks are relatively healthy, similar to home made coffees).

Now pull the average Starbucks coffee list, it's likely higher in average.

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#12

Post by unreal6 »

pixel_popping wrote: post #11
ar_lan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Energy drinks don't have much caffeine in them I'm just pulling the most prominent ones at my nearest gas station: * Celsius: 200mg * Alani Nu: 200mg * Rockstar: 160mg * Monster: 160mg * Reign: 300mg * Bang: 300mg * Red Bull: 80mg * Ghost: 200mg * C4: 200mg * NOS: 160mg A standard soda can is about 35mg caffeine. I do not think it's a myth to claim that on average, energy drinks have a high amount of caffeine.

It's not high, as per the same article, drinking 2 of those a day would be fine right? The ones you've listed also are always the big cans (for most) which to be a fair comparison with commercial coffees would also be large jugs. The comparison isn't versus Soda which are considered not caffeinated by most people but against regular coffees, commercial coffees specifically (as home-made energy drinks are relatively h…

https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/565/hot/nutrition https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/1044/iced/nutrition

Pulling even their largest coffee drinks (sampling a few) they all appear to be under 200mg of caffeine (mostly in the 90-150mg range)

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#13

Post by elmer2 »

I have a hard time with Caffeine. It will work for awhile, but at some point, I start getting massive anxiety and have to quit. Quitting takes me a week and comes with body pains and sometimes mild depression.

When I was in high school, I used to drink tons of Mt. Dew. I always thought having anxiety was just part of who I am. After quitting it for weeks and months at at a time, my anxiety mostly went away.

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#14

Post by mordnis »

al_borland wrote: post #3

The constant studies to justify coffee consumption remind me of all the studies to point to various forms of alcohol being healthy. I gave up caffeine about 25 years ago after I figured out it was the source of my chronic headaches (they were withdrawal headaches). Any time I've traveled with a coffee drinker it seems most of the day, especially the morning, are centrally focused on finding and acquiring coffee. They…

This is a very particular study. It is about relationship between coffee and heart disease, not coffee in general.

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#15

Post by clickety_clack »

Purely for balance, based on the comments where people have issue with it: I don’t have any issues with coffee. I don’t get any headaches or intestinal pain, and I don’t get withdrawals when I go on holidays or anything. I can drink a cup at 9pm and sleep just fine. I just really like the taste and smell of it, and really like to drink it, and I think going to a cafe is a great excuse to get out of the house for a while to sit somewhere and read a book for an hour.

Based on the number of people I see around me whenever I go to a coffee shop, I think there’s many people like me. It’s nice to see yet another study that shows there’s no real health impact to it.

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#16

Post by pixel_popping »

unreal6 wrote: post #12
pixel_popping wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not high, as per the same article, drinking 2 of those a day would be fine right? The ones you've listed also are always the big cans (for most) which to be a fair comparison with commercial coffees would also be large jugs. The comparison isn't versus Soda which are considered not caffeinated by most people but against regular coffees, commercial coffees specifically (as home-made energy drinks are relatively h…

https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/565/hot/nutrition https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/1044/iced/nutrition Pulling even their largest coffee drinks (sampling a few) they all appear to be under 200mg of caffeine (mostly in the 90-150mg range)

With Fable 5 that did a websearch, specific drinks do have a bit lower content than Energy drinks yes, but most have a higher content, and if we are talking about Redbulls, then virtually every Starbucks drink is higher:

1 Monster = "Big can" (16 oz)

Size-by-Size Comparison ~8–10 oz (Small / Short)

Starbucks Short Pike Place 180 mg ≈ 1.1 Monsters

Starbucks Short Blonde 180 mg ≈ 1.1 Monsters

Starbucks Short Latte/Cappuccino 75 mg ≈ 0.5 Monster

Dunkin’ Small Original 150 mg ≈ 0.9 Monster

McCafé Small Coffee 109 mg ≈ 0.7 Monster

Peet’s Small Brewed 150 mg ≈ 0.9 Monster

Monster (for scale) 160 mg = 1.0

=====

~12 oz (Tall / Medium-small)

Starbucks Tall Blonde 270 mg ≈ 1.7 Monsters

Starbucks Tall Pike Place 260 mg ≈ 1.6 Monsters

Starbucks Tall Cold Brew 155 mg ≈ 1.0 Monster

Starbucks Tall Americano 150 mg ≈ 0.9 Monster

Starbucks Tall Latte 75 mg ≈ 0.5 Monster

Dunkin’ Small–Med iced/coffee 150–210 ≈ 0.9–1.3

McCafé Medium Coffee 145 mg ≈ 0.9 Monster

Costa Medio coffee ~280 mg ≈ 1.75 Monsters

=====

~16 oz (Grande / Medium)

Starbucks Grande Blonde 360 mg ≈ 2.25 Monsters

Starbucks Grande Pike Place 310 mg ≈ 1.9 Monsters

Starbucks Grande Cold Brew 205 mg ≈ 1.3 Monsters

Starbucks Grande Nitro Cold Brew 280 mg ≈ 1.75 Monsters

Starbucks Grande Americano 225 mg ≈ 1.4 Monsters

Starbucks Grande Latte 150 mg ≈ 0.9 Monster

Dunkin’ Medium Original 210 mg ≈ 1.3 Monsters

Dunkin’ Medium Cold Brew 260 mg ≈ 1.6 Monsters

McCafé Large Coffee 180 mg ≈ 1.1 Monsters

Peet’s Medium Brewed 240–270 ≈ 1.5–1.7

Tim Hortons Large ~270 mg ≈ 1.7 Monsters

Monster 16 oz 160 mg = 1.0

=====

~20–24 oz (Venti / Large / XL)

Starbucks Venti Blonde (hot 20 oz) 475 mg ≈ 3.0 Monsters

Starbucks Venti Pike Place (20 oz) 410 mg ≈ 2.6 Monsters

Starbucks Venti Cold Brew (24 oz) 310 mg ≈ 1.9 Monsters

Starbucks Venti Americano (20 oz) 300 mg ≈ 1.9 Monsters

Starbucks Venti Latte (20 oz) 150 mg ≈ 0.9 Monster

Dunkin’ Large Original 300 mg ≈ 1.9 Monsters

Dunkin’ Large Cold Brew 347 mg ≈ 2.2 Monsters

Dunkin’ XL (24 oz) 360 mg ≈ 2.25 Monsters

Costa Massimo 350–400+ ≈ 2.2–2.5

Monster 24 oz 240 mg = 1.5

===

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#17

Post by thegrim33 »

gleeker wrote: post #5

I take Adderall and caffeine is especially bad for me. During the day I’ll be extremely paralyzed to productivity but have no problem lying around on the phone. Later when it wears off I’ll have discomfort around my abdomen and strange shooting nerve pain around the area and parts of my chest. Thought it could be small heart attacks but it doesn’t feel like a crushing pain and it’s very temporary and doesn’t include…

Do you not think that taking doses of literal amphetamines on a daily basis might be more associated with your complaints than consuming caffeine?

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#18

Post by al_borland »

pkulak wrote: post #8
al_borland wrote: post #3

The constant studies to justify coffee consumption remind me of all the studies to point to various forms of alcohol being healthy. I gave up caffeine about 25 years ago after I figured out it was the source of my chronic headaches (they were withdrawal headaches). Any time I've traveled with a coffee drinker it seems most of the day, especially the morning, are centrally focused on finding and acquiring coffee. They…

So, to summarize: * People who drink coffee... enjoy drinking coffee, and seek it out, which bothers you. * Some people (you in particular) have adverse reactions to stopping. These two consequences _are_ shared by many addictive substances, but also by many other things, like water, or Grape Nuts, or human contact. I really don't see how it makes the thing automatically unhealthy. Like it or not, there's basically n…

I would say what I've seen goes beyond simply liking coffee and seeking it out, which I tried to convey in the original comment. People enjoying coffee isn't what bothered me, it was the projection of the anxiety about where they were going to get it, that's what bothered me.

> plenty of evidence that it may in fact be healthy.

This was part of my point. I think a lot of the studies are have a bias as people are always looking to justify their heavy coffee drinking. Those studies often make for good headlines that get shared a lot by coffee drinkers.

When studies repeatedly come out about the health benefits of what is often seen as a vice, it's worth being a little skeptical. There are plenty of studies with questionable funding that are effectively marketing dressed up as science. We've seen this play out many times in the past.

> there's basically no evidence that coffee is unhealthy

This article we're discussing had a whole section on how caffeine affects the body, and it wasn't all positive. I'm not here to turn coffee into the new tobacco, I don't think it's that bad. However, I think it has a bigger impact on people's lives than they would like to admit, even if it is just that morning anxiety they have until their first cup. It's hard to see these things until you stop.

Even within the article itself there are contradictions.

It says this...

> The latest research indicates that consuming up to 400 mg of caffeine/day (equivalent to up to 5, 8-ounce cups of caffeinated coffee per day) is generally safe for most adults and appears to be linked to a lower risk of several cardiovascular conditions, including heart failure, heart disease and stroke in some individuals.

Then it says this...

> However, drinking more than 4 cups of caffeinated coffee a day may increase the risk of heart failure.

So more than 4 cups of coffee per day may increase the risk of heart failure, and this article is recommending drinking 5 cups.

It also talks about high blood pressure...

> In people with optimal blood pressure, drinking 1–3 cups a day was associated with an increased risk of developing high blood pressure, while drinking more than 3 cups per day was associated with a lower risk.

So we need to drink more than 3 cups to make sure we don't have high blood pressure, but if we drink more than 4 cups we're at a higher risk for heart disease.

What are we supposed to take away from this? It sounds like the data is all over the place.

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#19

Post by throwuxiytayq »

thegrim33 wrote: post #17
gleeker wrote: post #5

I take Adderall and caffeine is especially bad for me. During the day I’ll be extremely paralyzed to productivity but have no problem lying around on the phone. Later when it wears off I’ll have discomfort around my abdomen and strange shooting nerve pain around the area and parts of my chest. Thought it could be small heart attacks but it doesn’t feel like a crushing pain and it’s very temporary and doesn’t include…

Do you not think that taking doses of literal amphetamines on a daily basis might be more associated with your complaints than consuming caffeine?

Literal amphetamines are literally the most effective prescription drugs in the entire of field of psychiatry. Have some respect.

Re: 5 Cups of coffee per day (up to 400 mg of caffeine/day) is safe for most adults

#20

Post by wao0uuno »

gleeker wrote: post #5

I take Adderall and caffeine is especially bad for me. During the day I’ll be extremely paralyzed to productivity but have no problem lying around on the phone. Later when it wears off I’ll have discomfort around my abdomen and strange shooting nerve pain around the area and parts of my chest. Thought it could be small heart attacks but it doesn’t feel like a crushing pain and it’s very temporary and doesn’t include…

Talk with your doctor and ask for EKG. Those meds are not safe for people with preexisting heart conditions. Better be safe than sorry (or dead).
Post reply on HN