Yep, according to EU food safety experts, up to 400mg of caffeine a day is OK – but if you go over that, you’re actually harming your health.That’s the equivalent of five shots of espresso, which sounds like a lot, but when you think that lots of us do double shots, it starts to look like a fairly innocuous amount. Like, two-and-a-half strong coffees.
And don’t forget the caffeine in non-coffee-and-tea products too: there’s 80mg of caffeine in a 250ml standard can of energy drink, 40mg in a 355ml can of cola, 25mg in a 50g bar of plain chocolate and 10mg in a 50g bar of milk chocolate.
If you’re regularly exceeding this, you’re way more likely to suffer from anxiety and sleep deprivation, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) warned. ‘Chocolate beverages were important contributors to total caffeine intakes in children and toddlers in most countries, and the use of a conservative caffeine value for this food category may have led to an overestimation of caffeine intakes in these age groups.’
The EFSA hasn’t just pulled these fears from nowhere – it comes after extensive research into 39 surveys in 22 European countries looking at the effects of different levels of caffeine on a total of 66,531 participants.
So maybe think twice before you go for that second coffee today, and opt for drinking a lot more water (proven by scienceto provide an energy boost) or increasing your physical activity, which stimulates seratonin and dopamine, which makes you feel good and therefore way more alert, instead.
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Picture: Maggy Van Ejik
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.