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How much caffeine is in your daily coffee or energy drink — and is it dangerous?
A third lawsuit against Panera Bread over the chain’s caffeinated Charged Lemonade may have given some folks renewed jitters about whether their go-to energy drink is safe to sip.
The latest legal complaint alleges that a 28-year-old Rhode Island athlete had to be hospitalized in April 2023 after developing heart palpitations and dizziness the day after drinking two and a half servings of Charged Lemonade, which can contain up to 390 milligrams of caffeine in a 30-ounce serving. The plaintiff, Lauren Skerritt, says the drink was advertised as “plant-based” and “clean.” But the day after consuming it, according to the suit, she was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation — aka an irregular heartbeat, which can lead to a stroke, heart complications and other serious health problems. The suit, filed last week, also alleges that Skerritt continues to suffer ongoing symptoms almost a year later, CBS News reported.
This comes a few months after two other suits implicated Panera’s caffeinated drink in the deaths of two customers. Florida resident Dennis Brown, 46, suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on Oct. 9 after drinking three Charged Lemonades. It should be noted that the complaint, as reported by NBC News, shared that Brown had underlying health issues.
The family of college student Sarah Katz, 21, has also implicated Panera’s Charged Lemonade in her September 2022 death, according to a lawsuit filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Katz, who had a heart condition, died later the same day that she drank the caffeinated lemonade. The suit brought by her parents accuses the chain of failing to warn consumers about the drink’s ingredients.
The company was not immediately available for comment. It has started displaying an enhanced caffeine disclosure about its Charged Lemonade, however. Its menu website now notes that these drinks contain caffeine, warning that the lemonades should be consumed in moderation and are not recommended for “children, people sensitive to caffeine, [and] pregnant or nursing women.”
How much caffeine is in your favorite energy drink?
So, is 390 milligrams a lot of caffeine for one drink?
It’s quite a lot, in fact. Healthy adults should stick to less than 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The problem is that many people are probably consuming more of the stimulant than they realize, maybe even well exceeding the recommended daily limit, which could pose health risks like insomnia, nervousness, restlessness, nausea, increased heart rate and other side effects.
But what does 400 milligrams of caffeine actually look like?
The amount of caffeine in your morning coffee depends on the portion size and the concentration of coffee in your particular brew, so be sure to look up its nutrition content.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
That’s about eight cans of Diet Coke (or 11 cans of regular Coke
KO,
), or four cups of home-brewed coffee, so you probably don’t have to worry about completely giving up your favorite coffee or caffeinated drink just yet. (Unless it’s loaded with sugar, which is another story.) The FDA notes that a 12-ounce can of a caffeinated soft drink typically contains 30 to 40 milligrams of caffeine, an 8-ounce cup of green or black tea counts 30 to 50 milligrams and an 8-ounce cup of coffee is closer to 80 to 100 milligrams.
It’s important to know the portion size. Keep in mind that a standard cup is 8 ounces — less than what you might consider a cup of coffee to be. A single grande hot drip coffee at Starbucks
SBUX,
for example, is 16 ounces — that’s two 8-ounce cups of coffee. Many standard mugs or coffeehouse servings today are 12 to 16 ounces.
The caffeine content of different coffee brews and other drinks can vary widely. As detailed on Starbucks’s site, a grande, or 16-ounce, Pike Place Roast coffee contains 310 milligrams of caffeine — meaning that with that single drink, you are already almost hitting your daily recommended caffeine limit. That’s before you consider any other source of caffeine you might be consuming throughout the day, like a second cup of coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks, chocolate or certain supplements. Some painkillers, like those targeting headaches, might also have caffeine in them.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against kids under 12 consuming any caffeine at all, and recommends that teens age 12 to 18 consume less than 100 milligrams of caffeine a day.”
The recommended daily caffeine limit is even lower for kids and teens. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against kids under 12 consuming any caffeine at all, writing, “There is no proven safe dose of caffeine for children.” The AAP recommends that teens age 12 to 18 consume less than 100 milligrams of caffeine — about the amount in two 12-ounce cans of soda — a day. But energy drinks like Celsius and Prime that are popular on TikTok may pack an overcaffeinated punch that easily exceeds that 100-milligram limit. A single 12-ounce can of Celsius Original contains 200 milligrams of caffeine, for example, while Celsius Heat has 300 milligrams of caffeine in a single 16-ounce can. That’s double and triple the recommended daily limit for teens.
On the flip side, Red Bull has a relatively low 80 milligrams of caffeine in a single 8.4-ounce can — well below the amount in that Starbucks coffee.
Caffeine counts can get confusing, so here’s a chart comparing the caffeine content of some popular coffees, sodas and energy drinks to give you a better idea of how close a single serving comes to pushing you over the recommended 400-milligram limit for adults.
Here’s a look at how much caffeine is in some popular drinks.
MarketWatch
Health experts told MarketWatch that many people aren’t worried about their caffeine intake the same way they may be about their sugar or sodium consumption. Kids, teens and young adults in particular don’t pay attention to these amounts, they say.
“I see a lot of younger patients, particularly young men, who are drinking these caffeinated drinks in the morning, or before they go to the gym, and the feeling is that it helps them perform better,” Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical officer at WebMD, told MarketWatch.
A recent Mintel market report valued the U.S. energy-drink industry at $21.1 billion worth of sales in 2022, and forecast it would hit $22.7 billion in 2023, largely thanks to young men. “Energy drinks are largely a younger consumers’ category, with men aged 18-34 leading consumption,” the report noted. But there’s plenty of potential to get more younger women on board, as “the narrowest gap exists between men and women for hybrid energy drinks (coffee, ice tea, etc.),” it added.
“The biggest myth is that ‘Caffeine doesn’t hurt me,’ because you don’t hear about it being regulated as much,” Whyte said, “and so people are more concerned about sugar and calorie counts than caffeine.”
Yet the FDA warns that toxic effects, like seizures, can be observed with the rapid consumption of around 1,200 milligrams of caffeine.
“Caffeine itself, remember, is a stimulant,” Whyte said. “It’s going to increase your heart rate. It’s going to increase your blood pressure because it’s going to constrict the blood vessels and make your heart work harder and make it go faster. And it may make you more dehydrated.”
This can have a bigger effect on kids and teens, who are drawn to energy drinks in particular, noted Dr. Mark Corkins, the chair of the AAP committee on nutrition. “Kids think [caffeinated energy drinks] are cool,” Corkins told MarketWatch. “It’s an ‘adult’ drink. And we all like our stimulants. They make us feel good.”
But higher concentrations of caffeine can hit younger consumers harder than adults. “For a kid, one cup of coffee [or one energy drink] is a bigger dose per kilogram [of body weight] compared to a grown man,” he said.
So what should consumers know?
First, be aware of the signs of caffeine overdose, which include:
- Insomnia
- Jitters
- Anxiousness
- Fast heart rate
- Upset stomach
- Nausea
- Headache
- A feeling of unhappiness (dysphoria)
It’s important to read labels or look up a product’s nutrition information online to be aware of how much caffeine you are consuming.
“I don’t think anyone has a sense of what the generally recommended amount of caffeine is,” Whyte said. “So even if you see that a drink has 390 milligrams of caffeine in it, you don’t have a reference point” for whether that’s too much caffeine or not.
The bottom line: Adults should stick to less than 400 milligrams of caffeine a day. Teens age 12 to 18 should stay under 100 milligrams. And kids under 12 probably shouldn’t have any caffeine at all.
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