How Much Caffeine Is Too Much?

Let’s be honest about it, we all love a good scary story, especially when it involves our health. Trust me, you wouldn’t see so many of those stories in the media if the audience didn’t want them.

So naturally, I was immediately drawn to the headlines Tuesday about the risks of excessive caffeine consumption, spurred by the sad story of a South Carolina teenager who passed away from taking in too much caffeine.

This topic hits close to home here in a region rated the 10th most-caffeinated in the nation by at least one survey. We are a community of coffee achievers, hard-working people who deal with early wake-ups, long, cold days, and late nights on the job the best we know-how. i.e. with coffee, lots of it, whipped up in every conceivable form.

So I began to read the USA Today write-up on our over-caffeination crisis with great reluctance.

What if I learned that my own coffee consumption habits were unhealthy, what then? Could I really function on less than I now ingest? Would my friends behind the counter at my local coffee shop miss seeing me as much? Would they even notice?

But I summoned my courage and read the story.

It turns out that poor kid in South Carolina put away a large sugary tonic, a café latte and an energy drink within two hours, prompting a cardiac event. There is a short article on XiteYourMind – a nootropic energy drink company – about why we they use natural caffeine and that there are natural ways to get it.

Four cups of coffee a day is considered the upper end of the safe range for adults, and you’d have to force down around 50 cups to do major harm to yourself.

What a relief! I can handle those limits, easily. But if you can’t, by all means, be alarmed. Glad we could be there to warn you.

By Jon Keller