How Much Coffee Can I Drink?
Who doesn’t love a cup or 2 of piping hot, caffeinated coffee? I must have it before going to work, starting my morning workout, or while reading the daily news. I confess it’s one of my favorite beverages, and making a cup of coffee is almost always the first thing I do when I get up in the morning! Studies show that coffee is full of health-promoting substances that may help reduce inflammation, protect against chronic diseases, and increase alertness and athletic performance.
The American Heart Association says there is concrete evidence supporting claims that caffeine helps sharpen your mental focus, improve your mood, improve performance during exercise, and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. I’d like another cup please!
While past studies in the 1980s and 1990s claimed coffee is harmful and addictive, the majority of current research on coffee and health actually finds that it has many more healthful than harmful effects! So how much coffee can we safely drink? Consuming up to 400 mg of caffeine a day appears to be safe for most healthy adults according to the Mayo Clinic. That translates into about four cups of brewed coffee, 10 cans of cola, or two "energy shot" drinks (although the actual caffeine content in beverages varies widely, especially among energy drinks).
Keep in mind, some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others, and have reported side effects from caffeine such as anxiety, sleep disruptions, heart palpitations, restlessness, and more. If that’s you, please stay away! However, what’s true for ALL coffee drinkers is that adding an abundance of sugar and loads of creamer to your coffee will increase your daily sugar and fat intake, making a cup of coffee detrimental to your overall health according to the CDC. It’s best to ditch the sweetened caffeinated drinks for low sugar, low fat options (such as unsweetened plant-based substitutes, or low-fat dairy, in place of whole milk or whipped cream). Your body will thank you!
Michael Pollen has called caffeine “the most used drug in the world” in his book Caffeine: How coffee and tea created the modern world. Based on what we know about caffeine to date, I say if coffee is your drug of choice, drink up and enjoy!