6 ms·

Almost seems like you're trying to sensationalize it by changing it to Red Bull, something that's actually pretty low in caffeine once you put marketing aside.

Almost seems like you're trying to sensationalize it by changing it to Red Bull, something that's actually pretty low in caffeine once you put marketing aside. How about comparing it to Starbucks' regular hot coffee sizes? - Short - 180 mg - Tall - 260 mg - Grande - 330 mg - Venti - 415 mg Is drinking a 12oz Tall at Starbucks really dropping your jaw?

have_faith 6y ago
It drops my jaw that anyone drinks that regularly.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Well, this massive million drinker meta-analysis of coffee consumption (high levels, 5 cups a day) shows it significantly improves cardiovascular health. [1] > A nonlinear association between coffee consumption and CVD risk was observed in this meta-analysis. Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day, and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated CVD risk. [1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.113.005925 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha....
  - nwienert 6y ago
    What does it do to every other disease? Doesn't say much if it looks at a single factor outcome.
    - toxik 6y ago
      Suffice to say, if there were meaningful risks from drinking normal amounts of coffee, it would be known by now. Its main drawback is that it makes people nervous and jittery if taken in excess.
      - ThrowawayP 6y ago
        One of the other major ones is that it can aggravate stomach problems like gastritis since both coffee (even decaf) and caffeine are said to stimulate stomach acid production.
        nwienert 6y ago
        Sleep problems as well and migraines.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        I believe caffeine is both a treatment for, and a cause of headaches. [1] Excedrin for instance is a migraine treatment which includes Tylenol and caffeine. [1] https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/caffeine-and-migraine/ https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/caff...
        nwienert 6y ago
        Reason it’s a treatment is helping absorption typically, but also, a lot of people’s headaches are from withdrawal so it helps in the way drinking a beer helps a hangover.
  - jorvi 6y ago
    There is also a breadth of studies that show consumption is bad - I wouldn't cheer just yet.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      I'm fairly confident none of them were million-person multi-year meta-analysis, although I'm always happy to be proven wrong. Do you have any broad, high-confidence studies you have in mind?
coderintherye 6y ago
That's a fair point, Starbucks coffee has more caffeine than an average cup of coffee. I'm sure many people (including myself) are not aware of that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-caffeine/2014/05/23/bd3636bc-e044-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-caf...
- arcticbull 6y ago
  The amount of caffeine in a coffee depends on its extraction method, the grind, and to a lesser extent on roast. An espresso actually has much less caffeine than a cup of drip (60mg vs 200mg). Generally the longer you leave the beans exposed to water the more caffeine comes out, up to about 400 minutes when making cold brew. [1] I doubt Starbucks is deviously out to over-caffeinate its customers (although if they were, they've got my vote!) but rather the difference is attributable to variations in their brewing process. There's a limit to the amount of caffeine that can possibly come out of a bean, and so I would say that unless there's evidence they're spiking the brew, that Starbucks coffee is roughly the definition of an "average cup of coffee" A Venti is 590mL and 415mg of caffeine, 700mg/L of coffee. Based on the chart in [1] that would be roughly speaking the midpoint of roast kind at the 150 minute mark making cold brew, 10g/100mL of coffee beans (Figure 1). Or approximately a dark roast, coarse grind hot brew (Figure 3). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740146/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740146/
  - leetrout 6y ago
    I get so tired of people equating espresso with high amounts of caffeine. I don't know where that originated... maybe because of the high temp / pressure extraction and the oils making it so much richer?
    - Godel_unicode 6y ago
      Well it is much higher caffeine/volume, it's just that you (typically) drink a much lower volume of it.
    - 6y ago
scrozart 6y ago
Thanks for digging these up. I agree OP would have to try to avoid first looking at coffee.
JUNGLEISMASSIVE 6y ago
Coffee is a lot more than caffeine, though. It contains a whole family of monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which have a host of effects on the nervous system. That said, Red Bull very likely contains several types of flavonoids that also act as MAO-B inhibitors. Coffee, on the other hand, contains both MAO-A and MAO-B inhibitors mainly from the Harmala alkaloid family. Some of the compounds are neurotoxic.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  It seems like caffeine alone is an MAOI [1] and that decaf may not have the same effect [2] - very cool, thank you for sharing! I know there's a lot more in coffee too, so I'm looking forward to learning more. [edit] Found this [3] which I assume is what you were talking about? Which I assume is the reason studies show it can act as an antidepressant [4]. Fascinating! [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23850513/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23850513/ [2] https://www.jwatch.org/fw108796/2014/05/06/severe-hypertension-linked-caffeine-mao-inhibitor https://www.jwatch.org/fw108796/2014/05/06/severe-hypertensi... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16139309/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16139309/ [4] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/313988#possible-risks https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/313988#possible-ri...
seaman1921 6y ago
Yes drinking two 12oz Talls at Starbucks every day is not good for your sleep. Nespresso capsules have 60g for reference.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Do you mean mg rather than g?
- halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
  Source? I drink a fair amount of coffee every morning (not any after 10am) and never had any sleep issues. The half life for caffeine is somewhere around 6 hours, no?
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Closer to 10 or 12 for many, it has a high variance in humans.
  - csa 6y ago
    Anecdata, but one tall (actually, even one short) at 8am will typically postpone the time I fall asleep by 4 hours and will typically reduce my sleep by an equal amount (i.e., I wake up at the same time despite falling asleep later). I’ve run some experiments on myself, and this lasts for days at a time with one tall in the morning. If I keep at it for several days, I will crash early one evening, but still only sleep for 4 hours. It’s a nightmare for someone who typically sleeps 8 hours a night — I just feel fog-brained all the time. That said, workouts are super easy. If I had a tall in the morning and evening on a regular basis, ugh... I can’t even imagine. I did this once for extra energy during a sports tournament (we won), but I basically had to drink myself to sleep each night. Multiple doctors have told me that caffeine sensitivity varies from person to person, but I am on the unusually sensitive side.
    - 6510 6y ago
      It varies a lot. I can drink a pot of strong coffee before going to bed. I do this regularly, never any problem sleeping.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> Is drinking a 12oz Tall at Starbucks really dropping your jaw? Yes, absolutely. But I rarely consume caffeine so my experience is very different than yours. The study used caffeine-naive individuals. That is, people without any caffeine experience or tolerance. If you give two tall Starbucks coffees to a caffeine naive person, it will definitely cause some notable effects. Frequent coffee drinkers tend to underestimate the impact of their caffeine tolerance. A seasoned coffee drinker consuming two of the strongest coffees on the market day after day is a different story than caffeine-naive individuals skipping straight to excessive doses of caffeine without any tolerance.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Still, not too many people are drinking 6x Red Bulls at once, the scenario you brought up as an example. Meanwhile swathes of the world are pulling into Starbucks daily, many for their first time. It's also not two 12oz coffees, it's one at 8am and another at 5pm. It just kinda seems like everything you write here is trying to cause a reaction and it feels manipulative. You write all this just to reveal your actual point: > If you give two tall Starbucks coffees to a caffeine naive person, it will definitely cause some notable effects. Well, sure. We can all agree on that. And one of the notable effects is increased fat oxidation. Notice how uninteresting this observation is by itself. No need to dress it up as something more.

have_faith 6y ago

It drops my jaw that anyone drinks that regularly.

arcticbull 6y ago
Well, this massive million drinker meta-analysis of coffee consumption (high levels, 5 cups a day) shows it significantly improves cardiovascular health. [1] > A nonlinear association between coffee consumption and CVD risk was observed in this meta-analysis. Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day, and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated CVD risk. [1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.113.005925 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha....
- nwienert 6y ago
  What does it do to every other disease? Doesn't say much if it looks at a single factor outcome.
  - toxik 6y ago
    Suffice to say, if there were meaningful risks from drinking normal amounts of coffee, it would be known by now. Its main drawback is that it makes people nervous and jittery if taken in excess.
    - ThrowawayP 6y ago
      One of the other major ones is that it can aggravate stomach problems like gastritis since both coffee (even decaf) and caffeine are said to stimulate stomach acid production.
      - nwienert 6y ago
        Sleep problems as well and migraines.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        I believe caffeine is both a treatment for, and a cause of headaches. [1] Excedrin for instance is a migraine treatment which includes Tylenol and caffeine. [1] https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/caffeine-and-migraine/ https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/caff...
        nwienert 6y ago
        Reason it’s a treatment is helping absorption typically, but also, a lot of people’s headaches are from withdrawal so it helps in the way drinking a beer helps a hangover.
- jorvi 6y ago
  There is also a breadth of studies that show consumption is bad - I wouldn't cheer just yet.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    I'm fairly confident none of them were million-person multi-year meta-analysis, although I'm always happy to be proven wrong. Do you have any broad, high-confidence studies you have in mind?

coderintherye 6y ago

That's a fair point, Starbucks coffee has more caffeine than an average cup of coffee. I'm sure many people (including myself) are not aware of that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-caffeine/2014/05/23/bd3636bc-e044-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-caf...

arcticbull 6y ago
The amount of caffeine in a coffee depends on its extraction method, the grind, and to a lesser extent on roast. An espresso actually has much less caffeine than a cup of drip (60mg vs 200mg). Generally the longer you leave the beans exposed to water the more caffeine comes out, up to about 400 minutes when making cold brew. [1] I doubt Starbucks is deviously out to over-caffeinate its customers (although if they were, they've got my vote!) but rather the difference is attributable to variations in their brewing process. There's a limit to the amount of caffeine that can possibly come out of a bean, and so I would say that unless there's evidence they're spiking the brew, that Starbucks coffee is roughly the definition of an "average cup of coffee" A Venti is 590mL and 415mg of caffeine, 700mg/L of coffee. Based on the chart in [1] that would be roughly speaking the midpoint of roast kind at the 150 minute mark making cold brew, 10g/100mL of coffee beans (Figure 1). Or approximately a dark roast, coarse grind hot brew (Figure 3). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740146/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740146/
- leetrout 6y ago
  I get so tired of people equating espresso with high amounts of caffeine. I don't know where that originated... maybe because of the high temp / pressure extraction and the oils making it so much richer?
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    Well it is much higher caffeine/volume, it's just that you (typically) drink a much lower volume of it.
  - 6y ago

scrozart 6y ago

Thanks for digging these up. I agree OP would have to try to avoid first looking at coffee.

JUNGLEISMASSIVE 6y ago

Coffee is a lot more than caffeine, though. It contains a whole family of monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which have a host of effects on the nervous system. That said, Red Bull very likely contains several types of flavonoids that also act as MAO-B inhibitors. Coffee, on the other hand, contains both MAO-A and MAO-B inhibitors mainly from the Harmala alkaloid family. Some of the compounds are neurotoxic.

arcticbull 6y ago
It seems like caffeine alone is an MAOI [1] and that decaf may not have the same effect [2] - very cool, thank you for sharing! I know there's a lot more in coffee too, so I'm looking forward to learning more. [edit] Found this [3] which I assume is what you were talking about? Which I assume is the reason studies show it can act as an antidepressant [4]. Fascinating! [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23850513/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23850513/ [2] https://www.jwatch.org/fw108796/2014/05/06/severe-hypertension-linked-caffeine-mao-inhibitor https://www.jwatch.org/fw108796/2014/05/06/severe-hypertensi... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16139309/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16139309/ [4] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/313988#possible-risks https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/313988#possible-ri...

seaman1921 6y ago

Yes drinking two 12oz Talls at Starbucks every day is not good for your sleep. Nespresso capsules have 60g for reference.

sokoloff 6y ago
Do you mean mg rather than g?
halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
Source? I drink a fair amount of coffee every morning (not any after 10am) and never had any sleep issues. The half life for caffeine is somewhere around 6 hours, no?
- nwienert 6y ago
  Closer to 10 or 12 for many, it has a high variance in humans.
- csa 6y ago
  Anecdata, but one tall (actually, even one short) at 8am will typically postpone the time I fall asleep by 4 hours and will typically reduce my sleep by an equal amount (i.e., I wake up at the same time despite falling asleep later). I’ve run some experiments on myself, and this lasts for days at a time with one tall in the morning. If I keep at it for several days, I will crash early one evening, but still only sleep for 4 hours. It’s a nightmare for someone who typically sleeps 8 hours a night — I just feel fog-brained all the time. That said, workouts are super easy. If I had a tall in the morning and evening on a regular basis, ugh... I can’t even imagine. I did this once for extra energy during a sports tournament (we won), but I basically had to drink myself to sleep each night. Multiple doctors have told me that caffeine sensitivity varies from person to person, but I am on the unusually sensitive side.
  - 6510 6y ago
    It varies a lot. I can drink a pot of strong coffee before going to bed. I do this regularly, never any problem sleeping.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> Is drinking a 12oz Tall at Starbucks really dropping your jaw? Yes, absolutely. But I rarely consume caffeine so my experience is very different than yours. The study used caffeine-naive individuals. That is, people without any caffeine experience or tolerance. If you give two tall Starbucks coffees to a caffeine naive person, it will definitely cause some notable effects. Frequent coffee drinkers tend to underestimate the impact of their caffeine tolerance. A seasoned coffee drinker consuming two of the strongest coffees on the market day after day is a different story than caffeine-naive individuals skipping straight to excessive doses of caffeine without any tolerance.

hombre_fatal 6y ago
Still, not too many people are drinking 6x Red Bulls at once, the scenario you brought up as an example. Meanwhile swathes of the world are pulling into Starbucks daily, many for their first time. It's also not two 12oz coffees, it's one at 8am and another at 5pm. It just kinda seems like everything you write here is trying to cause a reaction and it feels manipulative. You write all this just to reveal your actual point: > If you give two tall Starbucks coffees to a caffeine naive person, it will definitely cause some notable effects. Well, sure. We can all agree on that. And one of the notable effects is increased fat oxidation. Notice how uninteresting this observation is by itself. No need to dress it up as something more.