When you imagine the typical college student, the first thing that may come to mind is a tired young adult with a heavy backpack, wearing earbuds and carrying a cellphone in one hand and the ubiquitous green-siren-stamped white cup in the other. College means early classes, long nights and a lot of responsibilities, and that usually equals a whole lot of caffeination. Plus, with Starbucks all over campus (The University of Akron has three on top of the coffee available at Zee’s and Einstein Bros), caffeine is easy to come by. But how much coffee is too much coffee? Or is it that, in the words of Cady from Mean Girls, the limit does not exist?
Okay, there is definitely a limit to how much coffee you can drink and caffeine you can consume. According to Caffeine Informer, for an adult who is not pregnant and has no medical issues, the daily consumption of caffeine is 300-400mg. This is mainly dependent on one’s body weight. Caffeine Informer actually provides a handy calculator for determining both your daily safe limit and also how much caffeine can kill you. So at 138 lbs, my daily safe limit is 376mg. For reference, while I could safely drink two grande refreshers at 80mg each, I should stick away from any venti Starbucks brewed coffees which clock in around 400mg.
While this may seem a little frightening when you consider your own caffeine consumption, in perspective I could drink 11 Cokes, take 5 espresso shots, or two 5 hour energy shots once a day and be (mostly) fine. Also, according to Caffeine Informer’s handy Death by Caffeine calculator, it would take about 57 cups of coffee to kill me.
Realistically, you are probably drinking a safe limit everyday on your own without even knowing it. After doing a quick and very unscientific poll of my friends who consume caffeine about every day, they were all well within their limits for caffeine consumption. This is not out of the ordinary either. According to a study published in Clinical Nutrition, while caffeine was consumed by 92% of college students in 2018, the average caffeine consumption was only 159 mg per day. Of course, that is not to say that drinking 300mg a day is good for you or you should ignore any negative side effects. Caffeine is a drug and you can 100% get addicted to it or have an adverse reaction. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discusses that some signs that you need to cut back on your caffeine intake include side effects such as headaches, insomnia, issues urinating and irritability. They also recommend you steer clear if you have any medical conditions before speaking with your health provider and making sure you are not ingesting any pure caffeine. One teaspoon of powdered caffeine is equal to 28 cups of coffee and can be found marketed in some dietary supplements. In fact, approximately half a teaspoon of pure caffeine taken quickly can cause seizures.
The FDA recommends slowly cutting back or switching to decaf. But remember – decaf still has a little bit of caffeine! Drinking tea can be another source of caffeine, and if you love Starbucks I highly recommend the refreshers – especially, the Mango Dragon fruit with lemonade. Clocking in at about 100mg for a venti, it’s a lesser amount of caffeine but still enough to give you a kick. And with midterms around the corner, we can all use a little extra (safe) boost.