(One expert told her: “I’ve never known of a case where somebody died from three caffeinated drinks.”)Īccording to a review of the medical literature, there were only 45 caffeine-related deaths reported between 19. How much caffeine is deadly?Īt toxic levels - we’re talking 30 cups of coffee consumed in a short period of time - the symptoms are a lot more serious: vomiting, abdominal pain, altered consciousness, and even seizures.ĭeath by caffeine, as in Cripe’s case, is typically caused by ventricular fibrillation - a rapid and irregular heart beat that disturbs the blood flow, leading to low blood pressure, loss of consciousness, and death.īut, as Tara Haelle wrote over at Forbes, these reactions are really, really uncommon from beverages alone. And if you’re not a regular caffeine consumer, you can probably tolerate less caffeine than habitual users. Any underlying health problems (particularly involving the heart), as well as medications or other drugs, can also stimulate a stronger reaction to caffeine. The reason? Some of us are genetically predisposed to be more sensitive to caffeine than others. Surely you’ve noticed that some people can drink six cups of coffee or more with no real adverse effects, while others get uncomfortably jittery on one cup. (The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends kids 12 to 18 years old stay below 100 mg of caffeine a day, or one cup of coffee.) That’s because caffeine can speed up the heart beat and disturb the body’s blood flow - which, in extreme cases, can be fatal.
Going above 400 mg daily, the recommended dose for adults, can cause unpleasant side effects that are probably familiar to you: jitteriness, insomnia, irritability. (A serving of an energy drink can have anywhere between 50 mg and 300 mg, and a can of soda typically contains less than 70 mg.) In the United States, we average about two cups of coffee - which total 100 to 200 mg of caffeine - a day. (That’s why the most recent US dietary guidelines suggested that drinking three to five cups per day could actually be part of a healthy diet.) Drinking coffee is also associated with a range of other health benefits, including lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. This legal drug can boost alertness, cognitive performance, and even improve short-term memory. Caffeine’s health benefits and risksĬaffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, and some 90 percent of adults in the world consume it in tea, coffee, soda, and other beverages daily.
“The safest of the three is going to be caffeine.” Here’s what you need to know about the risks of caffeine consumption and how not to overdo it. “Caffeine, alcohol, marijuana - they are legal recreational drugs,” said Alex Wayne Jones, a toxicologist with Linköping University in Sweden who studied caffeine overdose, last May. And doctors say kids and teens should never consume energy drinks because of the health risks of the caffeine and other stimulants in them.īut caffeine overdose is extremely rare, and usually involves high doses of caffeine in tablet or powder form, not beverages. It’s true that caffeinated drinks have become a bigger health concern - we know that the number of emergency room visits involving energy drinks has shot up in recent years. This mixture of beverages, according to a South Carolina coroner, lead to a “caffeine-induced cardiac event causing a probable arrhythmia.”Ĭripe’s untimely and highly unusual cause of death sparked questions about caffeine overdose and whether it’s now easier than ever to succumb to it. Davis Allen Cripe, a healthy South Carolina teenager, downed a Mountain Dew, a cafe latte, and an energy drink - and then died suddenly last year.
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