Thanks to this drink we can hold the dream, perform more at work and wake up with the right foot every morning.

It is about Coffee and only in Spain an average of 4.5 kilograms per person per year is consumed. But how much coffee can we take?

There are several countries that even have a day dedicated to this popular drink. Many people on the planet entrust their daily lives to the effects of its key component: Caffeine.

Excess caffeine is bad

Caffeine has positive properties for the Body. However, ingesting it in excess can generate counterproductive effects on the health of any person.

An overdose of this alkaloid is capable of causing dangerous symptoms such as:

• Insomnia
• Muscular tremors
• Cardiac arrhythmias

Although a lot of caffeine is needed to contemplate a medical event of this magnitude, the sufferer could even die from an overdose of this substance.

Everything can vary according to the organism of each individual.

How much caffeine does a cup have?

Knowing how much caffeine a cup of coffee can hold is very relative. This will depend on the quantity and quality of the ground seeds used in the mixture of this popular drink.

It is estimated that a single cup of this substance could carry 50 to 400 milligrams of caffeine. This measure will depend on the distribution that exists between the amount of coffee and water contained in each shot.

We also know that a dose of 10 grams could be lethal to the human body .

Understanding this, you would need to take 25 cups with a high concentration and in a very short time to start experiencing a complication.

Weight and poisonous dose

However, this also depends on the person’s weight. What dose of coffee is adequate?

• For example, an individual who does not exceed 50 kilos of body weight could have serious problems if he consumes 7.5 grams of caffeine and even run the risk of death.
• For its part, someone with more than 78 kilos who consumes 12 grams of caffeine could experience a fatal outcome. Some analyzes suggest that ingesting more than 90 espresso coffees can kill them instantly.

With children you have to be much more careful, because your metabolism is faster.

• In this case, 35 milligrams per kilo of body would be enough for a relevant intoxication .
• Anyway, this is already a quantity of coffee that not even an adult usually takes at one time.

The right amount of coffee

At present, it is believed that the amount of coffee that we should ingest in a day should not exceed 4 cups . This would be the ideal limit of consumption although there are those who far exceed it.

To this we must add that the tolerance of each organism towards certain substances is a unique and unrepeatable capacity.

Exceeding ourselves in this moderate measure could generate mild symptoms, such as:

• Difficulty to sleep
• Dizziness
• Stomach ache
• Irritability
• Accelerated pulse

There are other options

If we want to have better performance, not sleep or get up with more energy, there are other alternatives that can be complementary to coffee .

For example, a chocolate bar revitalizes us and also activates substance such as endorphins and phenylethalamine, associated with the feeling of happiness.

On the other hand there are infusions that stimulate us to maintain deep attention and concentration states . Some of these drinks have caffeine but in fairly limited amounts.

The best thing is that caffeine is not the only alkaloid that intensifies our physical and intellectual performance.

Avoid addiction

Caffeine is probably the most widely used and recognized legal drug in the entire planet. However, it is also true that it is a psychotropic substance and as such generates addiction in those who usually eat it.

Regular coffee users experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop perceiving caffeine in their body for 24 hours straight.

To be more precise, we refer to muscular and headaches, physical fatigue and concentration problems.

In this way, the drowsiness and inattention that we feel when we do not drink the proper amount of coffee could be the result of our own habit of drinking this beverage frequently.

In short, drinking coffee will not have a negative impact on our bodies as long as we do it with due moderation.

Its benefits are positive for our productivity, but its abuse could have the opposite effect.