For many of us, the morning starter has the dark color and roasted aroma that characterize coffee so much. A drink that is one of the most consumed in the world, but with a popularity that has been accompanied by alarmist headlines about how bad it is to ingest it and the effects it can have directly on the organs. But the truth is that there are lights and shadows.
There is good news. For those who love coffee, it will undoubtedly be a relief to know that the literature indicates that consumption is not as catastrophic as it is intended to be sold. But, as in everything, excesses of something can always lead to problems, even if it may seem like something super healthy, such as water. And coffee, obviously, is not exempt.
The limit. When it comes to establishing a red line for safe consumption, the clinical reference is not in the WHO, but in the FDA and EFSA, which are the food safety regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe, respectively.
Here both point to the same figure in coffee consumption: 400 milligrams of caffeine per day. A very relevant figure, since for the vast majority of healthy adults, consuming up to 400 mg daily is not associated with harmful effects on health, highlighting that this amount can be part of a perfectly healthy diet and lifestyle.
How many coffees is this equivalent to? This is where things get complicated since talking about “cups” is an analytical error, because not all coffees are the same. That is why for the FDA a 355 ml cup, which is a standard size, can contain between 113 and 247 mg of caffeine. But all this depends on the type of preparation, the extraction time or the coffee used, because Robusta coffee has more caffeine than Arabica, for example.
But generally speaking, that 400 mg is equivalent to about 3 or 4 cups of standard filter coffee per day.
Organic damage. It is easy to see different alarming messages warning that coffee can damage our entire interior if a specific dose is exceeded. But the reality is that the WHO does not send this message to society, since it is too alarming and does not correspond at all to reality. What is true is that excessive daily coffee consumption has important effects on our body, but it will not ‘rot’ our internal organs.
These include insomnia, nervousness, irritability, palpitations, muscle tremors, intestinal irritation, headache… This means that, although we talk about coffee not being contradictory for the population, logically, if there is an underlying problem, it may be better not to drink it, and even less so if it is taken in great excess throughout the day.
It has benefits. On other occasions we have talked about coffee and its benefits, because it has more than just keeping us awake in the morning. Here different studies have already pointed out the cardiovascular benefits that it can have or even that it improves sports performance.
But the metabolism of each person is quite involved here, since there is no single metabolism. In this case, there are people who process caffeine very quickly and its effect disappears quickly, but there are other cases where they metabolize it slowly, so its effects remain in the body and they may, for example, have more problems with insomnia, nervousness or palpitations because they are more “sensitive” to caffeine. This is the explanation, for example, that a person can boast of having a coffee at night and being able to sleep perfectly.
There are exceptions. Although we talk about a limit of 400 mg of caffeine, there are people who logically cannot reach this limit, such as pregnant women, where a maximum of 200 mg per day is recommended, since excess caffeine can cross the placenta and affect fetal development. But it also influences, for example, the cholesterol level, since here the Mayo Clinic points out that the consumption of unfiltered coffee, such as Turkish coffee, can raise cholesterol levels due to compounds such as cafestol.
Images | Dragana_Gordic in Magnific
In | If the question is “how much caffeine is in each cup of coffee or tea,” this graph offers insightful answers.
