On Your Fifth Cup of Coffee: What Does Excessive Caffeine Consumption Really Do?

By Wesley Nelson

Caffeine addiction can negatively affect a person’s social life, physical well-being, and numerous other areas (Hartney, 2019). Imagine this: you’re a busy student, you have a lot on your plate, and you need to stay awake enough to get all of your projects done on time. So, you realize you need to rely on some sort of stimulant, and the usual “poison” is a cup of coffee. As you continuously find yourself unable to keep up with your course load, all of a sudden you realize you have consistently ingested an unhealthy amount of caffeine to try to keep up. You also realize that many of the physical and mental problems you have been experiencing lately may be tied to this close relationship with your beloved, ever present cup of joe. For those who take on the risks of this popular “drug,” I think it is important to know what the perils of overconsumption are so that we know that there is a consequence to how much of this drug we take in. We owe it to our future selves.

As we look at some of the effects of excessive caffeine consumption, we can see that there are a lot of negative effects. Over half of Americans consume more than 300 mg of caffeine a day (Villanova University, n.d.). Mayo Clinic (2017) says that the average healthy adult can drink about 400 milligrams safely per day, so it seems that the average person in the U.S. is not consuming an unsafe amount of caffeine. Of course, just because the average caffeine intake is a safe amount does not mean there are not a lot of people who are well above this average and are consuming an unhealthy amount of caffeine. This excessive consumption can lead to bad results. According to the site Business Insider, there have been a lot of studies that have revealed the bad effects of taking in too much caffeine (Lopez, 2013). Among these associated effects are irrationality and irritability, making you hear things, and raising your blood pressure. Of course, they advise people to take this as a general guideline, as some people may be more sensitive to caffeine. As a result, how much caffeine each person should ingest really depends on their body and how it responds to caffeine. There have been documented cases of caffeine overdoses that lead to death. An example would be an Australian case where an individual drank between 7-8 cans of an unnamed energy drink between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. This person collapsed at 3 p.m. and had a fatal cardiac arrest, or their heart stopped (Foster, 2018). This example is an unfortunate case, but it provides a good lesson for what can result from a serious and excessive caffeine addiction.

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In conclusion, it is important to keep your caffeine consumption in check if you want to live a healthy lifestyle. Caffeine can have adverse effects if taken in large quantities, such as leading to serious health issues that can actually damage your body and disrupt your functioning. Maybe you have heard of cases where a particular individual became too addicted to some form of caffeinated drink (such as an energy drink). These cases are important because they provide a vivid example of what has happened to people who have become addicted to caffeine. They are the reality check that we can use to keep our caffeine consumption at a healthy level, while still allowing us to enjoy our caffeinated drinks while using to their most effective use in our daily lives. You may be wondering what you can turn to in order to lessen your potentially harmful dependency on caffeine. There are plenty of options out there for people who want to lessen their caffeine intake, with things like coffees with lower levels of caffeine (so that you can satisfy that coffee craving), and a lot of great tasting teas that have significantly lower caffeine levels. It all depends on what you like in deciding what beverage could help lesson your caffeine intake.