7d ago

What's the best daily caffeine intake in terms of BENEFIT / HEALTH RATIO?

I'm wondering about something a bit beyond the simple "what's the maximum dose not to exceed?". We all know that caffeine, consumed wisely, has a very favorable benefit/risk ratio: improved focus, energy boost, better athletic performance, and even some suggested long- term health benefits from studies.

So my question is: for a healthy adult male, what would be the ideal quantity of caffeine in milligrams (mg) per day to maximize benefits (focus, energy, well-being) while minimizing downsides (anxiety, poor sleep, jitters)?

I'm not looking for the dose to pull an all-nighter or break a record, but really the "cruising" dose for optimal daily health and productivity.

15 comments

3mg per kilogram of mass apparently
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52599-y
Though in reality you probably want to chat with your doctor if you're shooting for that.
That's approximately 1.5 to 2 cups of coffee an hour for me
- You might want to look up "half life of caffeine" before you spend all day drinking like that. Your body metabolizes caffeine differently than alcohol.
  Alcohol is linier e.g. 1oz/hr. Caffeine is halfed every ~5 hours. So if you start at 100mg, 5 hours later you're going to have 50mg still going, 10 hours down the road you have 25mg. Fun times if you have 4 cups of coffee over a two hour period at 90mg a cup you're going to have ~350mg and it's going to take ~20 hours to get under 25mg.
  There are numerous apps to track the actual amount of caffeine in your system at any given time and you might be surprised at how high the numbers go if you haven't tracked it before.
  
  I think your physical activity have an influence on the metabolizing of coffeine.
  Source: me. I have noticed a late coffee will more likely mess my sleep if I did not move my ass in the afternoon. Might also simply be the lack of physical activity though.
  
  Great point about half-life, but there's also huge genetic variation - some people with CYP1A2 gene variants metabolize caffeine up to 4x faster than others, which is why some can have an espresso before bed while others get jittery from a small cup in the morning.
  
  ~~Yeah I took into account a 5h half life, I'm a tall guy haha~~
  Well I did, but messed up something else. It's more like a coffee every 2h or so for me
  3mg/kg for me is about 350mg, so if I've not messed up the maths a 2nd time, I'd need to smash 4 coffees in the morning to get up to that level and then one every 2h30 to sustain
- This is just a paper on the effect of 3mg/kg on esports skills, it's literally the first sentence of the abstract. It has nothing to do with finding an optimal dose.
  
  Oh sorry, I thought it came across in my delivery I wasn't being serious that people should do this
The biggest issue with this is that caffeine has a strong habituation effect.
That means, if you consume the same amount of caffeine each day, it only takes between 1 and 3 weeks to get to a point where the caffeine does nothing for you. And what's even worse is that if you then stop using caffeine, you get basically an opposite caffeine effect, meaning you are more tired than if you had never used caffeine at all.
That's why so many coffee- or energy-drink-drinkers say they can't start the day without caffeine. Because they are habituated to their caffeine intake, and if they don't have their coffee/red bull/black tea/... they literally crash and are much more tired than if they never used caffeine in the firsst place.
So if you want to have any positive effect of caffeine you have to cycle it: use caffeine for a few days, then don't use it for a few days to make sure you don't get habituated to it.
This video with Dr. Ronda Patrick is about the best and most current deep-dive I'm aware of on caffeine without going and reading the research papers themselves (which she links in the show notes)
1-2 cups, all consumed before noon to minimize risk of sleep problems. Mix green tea with it, which reduces the jitters by balancing the caffeine with l-theanine which has a mild calming effect.
Green coffee has the highest levels of antioxidants and related phytonutrients, so if you can find a way to brew that feasibly, you'd likely be getting the greatest health benefits.
Some studies have found that one of the fats in coffee beans can increase cholesterol levels, and the effect depends on how you brew it. If you brew using a paper filter, the fat gets filtered out and there appears to be no cholesterol risk with this method.
Alternatively, tea in and of itself is also a great choice. I start every day with a 50 oz french press full of a half and half mix of green and black tea, with half a teaspoon each of turmeric and amla powder added. All the benefits, none of the downsides.
I drink 3 scoops of Folgers per day, so I'd say that's about optimal.
Seriously, this isn't something science is gonna help you with. Just tool around and play it by ear. Caffeine is a pretty mild drug, so its benefits will be mild, as will its detriments. Afaik, there is no significant negative impact to caffeine intake beyond just poor sleep. Like, it doesnt give you cancer. So fooling around and seeing what works for you isnt gonna send you to an early grave.
Even caffeine's impact on sleep quantity/quality, I'm kind of doubtful of. Sure it is obvious - but is it really significant? Many cultures around the world have a habit of drinking tea or coffee before bed, which seems like an odd choice if it meant that everyone constantly felt like trash the next morning - so I wonder if other lifestyle factors could improve sleep quality more than caffeine intake decreases it. Seems like a bit of a stretch, but I like to stay open minded.
- Caffeine has a calming or even sedative effect on a decent number of people who have ADHD, so that may be a part of it. Personally I have to cut off all caffeine intake about 12 hours before bed or I have trouble sleeping, but my grandmother used to have a cup of coffee before bed and drop off within 20 minutes.
For me, a 32oz pot of black tea brewed for 5-6 minutes consumed at least 12 hours before I go to bed does the trick. It gets me going and takes away the fog, and when I'm following the timing rule it doesn't mess with my sleep at all.
However, people have all sorts of tolerance and sensitivity levels to caffeine, as well as individual reactions, body chemistry etc, it's probably something you will have to experiment with to find the right balance for you.
That math checks out. Keep in mind that most major health organizations are saying something like this about the safe levels of total daily intake:
Intakes up to 400mg per day (about 5.7mg/kg bw per day) consumed throughout the day do not raise safety concerns for healthy adults in the general population>
Not saying you should change what you're doing, just putting it out there for everyone

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