Up to 25 cups of coffee a day still safe for heart health, study says

https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_6decc22b30997e1b62c2b80c45a2a828

by Bender • 7 years ago

79 78 7 years ago

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droithomme• 7 years ago

So, those of us at 26 need to cut back a bit.

marsrover• 7 years ago

Looks like I’ve been cutting myself off at 400mg caffeine daily for no reason. Good to hear, I’ll start drinking more.

mykowebhn• 7 years ago

When we parametrize complex systems in studies such as this, I feel we tend to lose the forest for the trees.

Okay, so maybe 25 cups of coffee a day won't destroy my heart.

But this is what happens when I have 5 cups of coffee a day:

1) I get jumpy and I feel anxious. If I drink too much I start to feel what I can only describe as existential dread (I know it's weird).

2) I can't hold on to things because my hands are shaking.

3) I don't sleep as well at night, even if I don't drink any coffee after 12pm.

4) My lymph nodes start to swell. (This last one was really weird for me when I found out that it was caffeine that was causing the lumps in my breast. I'm pretty sure it's the caffeine since both times I had the lumps I quit coffee cold-turkey and the lumps disappeared.)

I now limit myself to two cups of coffee per day. If I'm feeling indulgent I may have a third cup, but that's not daily.

dsfyu404ed• 7 years ago

I think the point here is that people with heart disease needn't worry too much about coffee/caffeine intake. Heart disease affects a large part of the population and even among those who are not effected heart health is still something to be conscious of, especially in middle and old age.

cptskippy• 7 years ago

Agreed, they're not condoning or advocating for high consumption. They're simply establishing that even when drinking absurd amounts of coffee you're not at increased risk, therefore it is ok to drink coffee.

_lbaq• 7 years ago

That is wrong, what they say here is that arteries may not suffer by drinking coffee. But there is a lot of evidence pointing that all sorts of arythmias can be connected to caffeine intake...

_iyig• 7 years ago

You also experience decreased blood-flow to the brain, especially when abstaining from coffee after periods of chronic use:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748160/

duxup2• 7 years ago

Two is my general limit as well.

I've had conversations about an issue with someone at work and the response was "Three cups today huh man?"

I get a bit worked up sometimes with that third cup.

chrismeller• 7 years ago

If I drink too much I start to feel what I can only describe as existential dread (I know it's weird).

Not weird at all. It’s that free-form, nameless, unspecified anxiety.

yzxku• 7 years ago

+1 here. I can't describe it, but it's like a feeling that I'm about to die, that everything is about to end. Needless to say, it's not pleasant.

Retric• 7 years ago

Also, studies like this don’t how it’s heathy, they simply fail to demonstrate significant harm over the course of the study which is a very different thing.

mratzloff2• 7 years ago

A few years ago I just decided to give up caffeine entirely. It wasn't worth the impact on my sleep or the stop-everything-and-find-caffeine headaches I got. I became uncomfortable with the fact that, in some small way, a substance exerted that much control over my life.

huxflux• 7 years ago

Did you replace it with something else?

n4r9• 7 years ago

When we parametrize complex systems in studies such as this, I feel we tend to lose the forest for the trees.

I think that's an unfair accusation. The study set out to answer a very specific question, and did so. Knowledge often progresses by building big pictures out of the answers to lots of little questions. In terms of your forest metaphor, I would say that the study is "identifying some specific groups of trees in the forest".

NicolasBeuzeboc• 7 years ago

I love the taste of coffee, had cafe au lait as a kid, then brewed, then french press and stove top moka pot. The last two methods slowly made me sick. It turns out when not using a paper filter, things like cafestol makes it through the process in higher concentration and after a few days of consumption I would get intense pain near my liver/gallbladder, for about 30 minutes I would be on the bathroom floor waiting for it to pass, often only vomiting helped. I stopped coffee and those symptoms stopped. Later tried poured over coffee with a paper filter , after a few days those symptoms would come back. Decaf doesn't help. Now in my late 30s I can't have coffee, tea or chocolate. The caffeine/theine/theobromine was not good either, anxiety, headaches, muscle twitching, heart palpitations, irritability, leading to, sorry for the detail, dehydration and hard stools. It's been a year since I've stopped, and I feel serene, easier to stay hydrated, better sleep and great bowel movement. If someone can invent the impossible burger equivalent of coffee (no caffeine, cafestol, roasting carcinogens ...) I'll be first in line, not sure how long that line would be though.

arandr0x3• 7 years ago

Chicory's a pretty good impossible burger equivalent. Not sure on its carcinogenic status though.

homero• 7 years ago

Forget the cups, what's the milligrams? Cups can vary by hundreds.

vectorEQ3• 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_(unit)

vectorEQ3• 7 years ago

and yes, everyone makes coffee exactly as strong as the next person :D obviosuly

jlg23• 7 years ago

The comment was about caffeine content, which varies wildly depending on bean, roast, brewing method....

jimpudar• 7 years ago

Typically people quote between 80 and 100 mg of caffeine in a "standard cup" of coffee. A Starbucks "short" Blonde Roast has around 190 mg.

Caffeine content will vary widely depending on the type of bean, roasting time, and the amount of ground beans used to brew the cup.

resoluteteeth• 7 years ago

There's also the acrylamide, though. (I wonder how much we should really worry about it?)

vectorEQ3• 7 years ago

sure, pack of cigs a day u can also become 100+ years old.

don't forget about the impact on your mental processes and other effects these substances have on you though. they are arguably much worse than cutting off a few of your life years...

i used to drink loads of coffee. now i only drink it on occasion, and really it's helped my attention become a lot more stable. caffeine and other substances have varying levels of effect on people. for me it's pretty intense, but for the person next to me, they feel nothing of it.

long story short: listen to your own mind and body when it comes to your diet. it will tell you what is good and bad if you listen carefully. if you don't listen, perhaps it will become ill as a form of yelling at you to get your attention... ;D

SketchySeaBeast• 7 years ago

Professor Metin Avkiran, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said in a press release: "There are several conflicting studies saying different things about coffee, and it can be difficult to filter what we should believe and what we shouldn't. This research will hopefully put some of the media reports in perspective, as it rules out one of the potential detrimental effects of coffee on our arteries."

They aren't saying that drinking coffee doesn't have problems, all they are saying is that it doesn't appear to affect the arteries. They aren't trying to provide an anecdote about simple living, it's testing a hypothesis.

tomatotomato37• 7 years ago

Two things:

1. I have the feeling both this study and the ones it is trying to contradict are not reproducible, like 99% of other health food type studies

2. Your kidneys are probably going to be the bigger sufferers in this scenario

zxv• 7 years ago

I wonder why they didn't compare results for those that don't drink coffee at all?

112233• 7 years ago

Having not drunk an ANSI cup of ISO coffee, what is the approximate amount being discussed? A pack a day (of ground beans)? How many GreatBrittan cups are in, e.g. a typical Swedes' coffee?

arketyp• 7 years ago

I would guess 25 cups translates to an excessive amount anywhere in the world.

cat199• 7 years ago

'cup' typically refers to a demitasse in colloquial coffeespeak, but this is a scientific study, so ymmv. should be roundabouts 100mlish for demitasse and 200ml for US cup, give or take

Havoc• 7 years ago

There isn't a ANSI/ISO standard to my knowledge. But some ramblings that might help you ballpark it:

One shot of espresso equates to roughly 100mg of caffeine - give or take (a lot).

How many GreatBrittan cups

Assuming you're British...if you walk Costa and ask for a small black...you're getting around 2 cups worth of caffeine. Just under 200mg. They're not likely to serve you anything north of 400mg.

Tolerances for caffeine are all over the place. I know that personally at around 1000mg per day things go for focused/wired to uncomfortable for me.

25 cups...is at least double that.

bengerbil• 7 years ago

I assume they're talking about my 1.5 litre / 52 oz cups.

idlewords• 7 years ago

But it's that 26th cup that puts me in the zone!

mattferderer• 7 years ago

I'm curious if this was done with filtered drip coffee vs espresso. I'm a bit ignorant on this subject but I've read some arguments that drip coffee is filtered & therefore may be better for your heart as it filters out certain elements.

I don't have a reference on this, purely looking to learn more about the differences.

SimeVidas• 7 years ago

I love coffee but I feel three per day is pushing it. Do people really drink much more than that?

duxup2• 7 years ago

I started coffee late in life. 2 cups a day is my thing, all before lunch because after that it messes with my sleep.

But I've worked with people where effectively there wasn't a moment in the day they weren't drinking coffee and they were going to get more pretty much constantly.

I didn't realize how much people drink until I started.

dllthomas• 7 years ago

My dad would set a pot of coffee on a timer at night. In the morning, he'd get up and pour himself a cup of coffee, pour the rest in a thermos, and set another pot of coffee, most of which also went in to the thermos, which would be empty by the end of the day.

yoz-y• 7 years ago

Yes. If I don't manage myself I could drink 6-8 cups. Basically I would go make a coffee, sit down, reach for the cup to drink and realize that it's already empty. Now I mix in decaf and limit myself to 5

diminoten2• 7 years ago

I probably drink 6-8 cans of soda daily, though they've got less caffeine than a cup of coffee.

I find I just like to sip on something constantly, and water gives me a headache.

swarnie_2• 7 years ago

You'll probably save money on shoes later in life with stats like that... Every cloud ect.

flukus• 7 years ago

I find I just like to sip on something constantly, and water gives me a headache.

I'd see a doctor about that, water shouldn't give you a headache unless you drink much more than 6-8 cans worth a day, you might have a sodium deficiency or have something else wrong. Maybe even a sugar come down from the 6-8 cans of soda which is far from healthy.

swarnie_2• 7 years ago

Just finished my 7th, wondering if i can fit an 8th in before home time in 35 mins.

Not a conscious effort... Just sorta happens.

butteroverflow• 7 years ago

I drink about a couple of liters per day, sometimes less, depending on the mood. I think I have no caffeine sensitivity at all, since I have normal BP, no sleep problems, and am able to stop drinking all caffeinated beverages for a few weeks without any (obvious) problems (did it several times after getting tired of the taste).

All these personal anecdotes (when I stopped drinking coffee, my wife returned to me, and I won in Powerball!) sound very strange to me.

S_Bear• 7 years ago

I'm about at the 25 cups point (2-3 pots of coffee a day), and I too have no issues, drinking sunup to sundown (and have done so for close to 20 years).

arandr0x3• 7 years ago

People greatly enjoy feeling like they made a worthwhile sacrifice and giving up coffee is an easier achievement than running a half-marathon (though that one is also a popular cause of returning wives and Powerball wins).

Anyway, I'm like you, and actually once said "I have no caffeine sensitivity LIKE AT ALL", and then I cut down from "last coffee before dawn" to "around 1.5L" and the amount of psychological side effects I stopped having did change my life (no Powerball involved). At the time, of course, I would have called such side effects "that's just me". So, mileage varying. And some people are super sensitive to that somewhat racing adrenaline feeling, even though it is not actually dangerous.

propogandist• 7 years ago

Espresso shots. Yes, there are some of us that enjoy coffee. In certain countries within Europe, I saw people drink coffee after dinner...didn't make any sense to me, but it seemed to be a common cultural thing.

ben509• 7 years ago

I used to work across from a Starbucks and I'd routinely have three venti light brews over the day, 60 oz is 5 cups. And Starbucks was very high in caffeine content for drip coffee, plus light roasts have more caffeine.

For me, it was something I could sip all day long, especially as black coffee is a tasty zero-calorie beverage, and at least in the morning I'd feel that rush of focus. Eventually had to give it up due to insomnia.

teilo• 7 years ago

The research also showed that moderate and heavy coffee drinkers were most likely to be male, smoke and consume alcohol regularly.

So this shows an obvious problem with the study. They did not rule out co-factors. If the moderate to heavy coffee drinkers are also smoke and consume alcohol regularly, then this already puts them at a higher risk for heart disease, and likely completely dwarfs any effect of caffeine.

SonsOfThunder• 7 years ago

even those who drank up to 25 cups a day were no more likely to experience stiffening of the arteries than someone drinking less than a cup a day.

Stiffening of the arteries was not what the doctor at the emergency room mentioned when he told me that I needed to reduce my caffeine intake.

radar• 7 years ago

Last time I looked to an article for caffeine advice it said 600mg per day was the number to not go over.

Common caffeine contents: Double Espresso ~100mg Starbucks small coffee ~200mg

retrac98• 7 years ago

I quit caffeine altogether a while ago, and it's made a huge difference to my quality of life and work.

When I wake up, I'm actually awake. When I go to bed, I'm actually sleepy. I don't wake up several times during the night anymore, and I'm not falling sleep mid-afternoon ever day.

deminature• 7 years ago

I've had some brief breaks recently, and abstaining leads to actually feeling tired around bedtime, falling asleep in a few minutes and waking up feeling very refreshed. I'd recommend every regular caffeine user give it a try.

TheRealPomax• 7 years ago

This article does not mention "mg", "milligram", or even just the word "caffeine", not links out to the actual research. So whoever upvoted this to the front page: shame on you. We can be more judicial than that.

lazyjones• 7 years ago

It's safe for the heart because the stomach will kill us first?

pessimizer• 7 years ago

Maybe one day we'll reach the final headline:

Coffee Drinking Irrelevant To Heart Health, Unsure Why We Were Always Writing About The Health Effects Of Coffee Or Why We Repeatedly Rotated Through Every Possible Position On What They May Or May Not Have Been

jonheller• 7 years ago

I drank five to six cups a day, and felt like I desperately needed it, and scoffed at anyone who suggested I try getting by with less.

At some point I stumbled on an article about the adenosine receptors in your brain will actually compensate for this much caffeine by just growing more of them. I also read that you can actually "kill" these extra receptors by going cold turkey for a week.

So I did it, and it sucked (the second and third days were the worst). But that was a year ago and I now get an equal if not better effect from two cups a coffee each day.

joncrane• 7 years ago

I didn't have to go cold turkey; I simply stopped drinking as much and my receptors managed.

The funny thing is, the craving for coffee when I'm at work is when I'm stressed out and want control over something. Well, coffee has a very neat little cause-effect system that would give me something to change reliably.

The problem is, I don't even particularly like the effects of that second or third cup of coffee; I just wanted the control to change my state of mind.

I'm not perfect and I still do reach for that 2nd or 3rd cup sometimes but by realizing I'm a better coworker with just the one first thing in the morning helps a lot.

hu3• 7 years ago

This article is plastered all over the web with similar title and content wording as if it was copy-pasted and slightly edited numerous times. Sadly no article links.

Eventually I found this PDF: https://heart.bmj.com/content/heartjnl/105/Suppl_6/A8.2.full...

romellem• 7 years ago

I tried to find the original source for this, but this is all I could find: https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-arc...

It doesn't go into too much detail on the research.

jhayward• 7 years ago

I don't have any links to hand but I'm fairly darn certain that arrhythmias start showing up way before anyone gets to 25 cups per day, not to mention fluid balance/kidney issues, which can lead to congestive heart failure.

TLDR; arterial stiffness is only one measure of "heart health".

knicholes• 7 years ago

I've only drank coffee a total of probably six times in my life. I seem to be getting by just fine without it.

saagarjha• 7 years ago

It’s a great performance enhancer if you take it rarely enough, and it’s entirely legal to use at academic competitions :)

kup02• 7 years ago

25 cups of coffee in a day sure seems like an unhealthy amount of caffeine.

it seems the only factor they were checking for (?) was arterial stiffness? if you're arteries aren't stiff but you're hyped and anxious out of this world and have a very elevated heart rate... not sure the stiffness is what matters anymore

1 cup typical drip coffee = ~70-120mg caffeine

25 cups = ~1750-3000mg caffeine

Examine (https://examine.com/nutrition/caffeine-consumption/) recommends up to 400mg/day as safe for healthy adults as in "most healthy people won't experience side effects at this level". It seems like 1000mg is the "beginning" of toxicity for a healthy person. Of course, half-life and time between consumption of different sources makes a difference too.

But 1500, 2000+ in a day? Phew, maybe I'm overly cautious but that just seems unwise for anyone

syn0byte• 7 years ago

British study. We can infer instant coffee was the main preparation recorded in the study, which has a lower caffeine content than fresh brewed.

~70-120mg look like drip brew numbers. Instant tends to run from 30-50mg.

25 cups of instant == ~750-1250mg

kup02• 7 years ago

Good point, hadn't considered that, which does make a significant difference.

NikkiA• 7 years ago

Bear in mind this study is only considering effect on the heart, caffeine's primary effect will be on your brain.

(Plus since the '25 cups' only comes from the fact that that is the limit of who they tested, the result is essentially 'we haven't found a level of coffee use that is harmful to the heart, yet'.

reallydude• 7 years ago

"Health" here is a soft term to mean "won't kill you quickly or effect your tissue for a long time".

Talking about the effect of healthy hearts obscures the effects. I am in stage 2 heart failure (as I have been for a long time). I cannot drink coffee, as it aggravates the tissue.

The study can say whatever it wants about coffee (without caffeine), but the effect of 100mg of caffeine on the heart is detrimental. That dread is the same as many heart-attack-precursor feelings (also documented in EMT training), that racing heart rate is aggravation of the left atrium, that shaking is the fight-or-flight adrenaline (which is what makes us feel good). This looks like a proletariat study. "Sure you can drink as much coffee as you want, as long as you feel good about producing. It's fine until it isn't."

cs702• 7 years ago

I almost spit out my coffee upon reading "25 cups of coffee a day" -- wait, what!?

Then I read the OP... and yes, it turns out there are people who routinely drink that much coffee in the UK.

Wow.

Can you imagine what one's body would feel like after ingesting 25 -- twenty five -- cups of coffee in a 24-hour period?[a]

[a] Assumes zero hours of sleep per day.

kurthr• 7 years ago

Cutting back to single digits is the hardest part!

My company had a row of 3 automated espresso machines so I timed the dispensing delay (which happened to be almost exactly the grind time) so that I could pipeline the process using all of them. People were moderately horrified as I filled my coffee cup with a hexa-shot of espresso... but why waste time hanging around the water cooler when you can vibrate in front of your computer?

cheald• 7 years ago

It's actually not exactly that inconceivable if the you're using the traditional 5 fl oz cup size for tea/coffee.

I've just finished my morning coffee - a 34fl oz French press's worth, black. That's almost 7 "cups" by traditional measure, but it's not a particularly outlandish amount.

RappingBoomer• 7 years ago

I don't believe many studies these days....industry lobbyists carry scientists around in their pockets like so many nickels and dimes...

Ancalagon• 7 years ago

This is so sad, but unfortunately so true :(

And I really have no idea how to solve it without an effective replication/peer-review process, which is currently not popular for scientists trying to make a name for themselves.

danmg• 7 years ago

This was a longitudinal study that which controlled for blood pressure. What about people for whom habitual heavy coffee consumption causes high blood pressure? The study just looked at MRI heart scans. This sort of interaction won't show up in that setting.

scotty79• 7 years ago

I get dizzy from drinking two cups.

Para2016• 7 years ago

Self reported survey without a dose of caffeine. This is less than useless

terrycody• 7 years ago

this is simply not truth, at least to me. I tried couple of coffees around a week and then suddenly my heart went to nearly broken. For most of people, I guess too much coffee will do more harm to heart than good.

That's why I always say Study and Research is an ongoing process which people tend to understand the universe, and it maybe wrong and wrong again, until u finally veiled the final secret.

arandr0x3• 7 years ago

Although some participants in the study drank 25 cups a day, the average intake among the highest coffee consumption group was five cups a day

There's an obvious sampling bias, where if Joyful Joe is happily guzzling his 25 cups a day, he's probably not fighting weird heartbeats and trouble breathing the whole time, whereas Jittery Jim has one cup and talks the ears off his local beleaguered 7-11 worker and has to be dragged out by security only to spend the night awake in bed chewing every loose bit and bob off his own fingers.

Also, IIRC when people say people with heart conditions shouldn't drink coffee they mean "because stimulant overdoses screw up the heart's electrical rhythms and can turn not-so-good oopsies into fatal oopsies" and not "because you'll have a heart attack in 50 years". Heart attacks in 50 years are, however, a good reason to keep away from the delicious cookies you are probably disappearing into your hungry feeding tube washed down with a milk-and-sugar mixture sold at a huge markup because it contains 0.5g of plant material painstakingly harvested by faraway children, but definitely not 25 times a day, because no one's that rich.

The research also showed that moderate and heavy coffee drinkers were most likely to be male, smoke and consume alcohol regularly

Oh, well, they're dying of heart disease either way, might as well have fun doing it.

Up to 25 cups of coffee a day still safe for heart health, study says

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