[FirmwareBurner]

>Basically everyone who consumes caffeine is a chronic user. Everyone I know of drinks it daily

There goes HN with the health quackery again. Citation needed other than your opinion on you circle of acquaintances.

Drinking 300mg vs 50mg of caffeine a day are not the same, and lumping everyone under chronic just because you have a strong opinion on the topic is silly.

In this case they define chronic as someone who consumes over 200mg per day but the article and paper itself is very weak as they did not accurately measure subject's caffeine intake, they just went on subject's self reported data("I drank a coffee and a red bull") and built estimations on that which is weak science as there's not a fixed amount of cafeine in a cup of coffee but can vary wildly.

[morsch]

"Among those drinking coffee daily, almost 80 percent drank two or more cups while at home on a weekday."

https://www.statista.com/chart/19524/cups-of-coffee-drunk-by...

"The average American coffee drinker drinks just over 3 cups per day."

https://www.ncausa.org/newsroom/nca-releases-atlas-of-americ...

200 mg is about two cups of coffee.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-caffeine-in-co...

[FirmwareBurner]

That doesn't prove everyone who drinks coffee is a chronic consumer. Caffeine doses are not binary, as in either you don't drink any coffee at all or are a chronic consumer otherwise.

What about those who consume it in small moderation?

Just because other people abuse it doesn't mean those who do not suffer the exact same negative effects in the same manner.

Of course studies will mostly focus on the cronic consumers as those will generally show the biggest symptoms and will be easier to study and draw conclusions versus the non coffee consumers, but that doesn't mean everyone is chronic consumer.

[mort96]

Those who consume it regularly, even in small amounts, are chronic consumers.

[david-gpu]

> Those who consume it regularly, even in small amounts, are chronic consumers

Not as defined in the study we are discussing, which labels "chronic consumers" those who take more than 200mg of caffeine per day.

[mort96]

Thanks, that's an important point. Interesting way to define "chronic".

[mahogany]

It would help if you defined “chronic consumer” in this context, because consuming multiple cups of coffee a day certainly sounds chronic to me.

[darthrupert]

It's a reasonable assumption, given how addictive, plentiful and socially encouraged coffee is.

[KptMarchewa]

Cups is not telling a lot. Are those two espressos, americanos, or something else?

[walthamstow]

Americano is espresso + water so I don't think that particular distinction will matter

[jncfhnb]

I mean mostly they’re gonna be coffees

[ben_w]

“Chronic” means “ongoing”, not “severe”. Given the details in the open access paper, I think this needs more study to find the threshold that matters, and also the highest number I found in this study with in browser search for “ mg” was 200 mg so arguing about 300 vs. 50 just seems silly.

[FirmwareBurner]

>the highest number I found in this study with in browser search for “ mg” was 200 mg so arguing about 300 vs. 50 just seems silly.

200mg is not the highest number but the threshold they seem to define for chronic. There are definitely people who drink way more than 200mg as that's only about 2 cups of coffee. I assume heavy cafeine users go above 300mg.

[ben_w]

“In this study” is an important part of the sentence you quoted.

Before learning about caffeine psychosis, my peak caffeine consumption was probably 8 cups/day where each cup was 2 table (not tea) spoons, so, ah, in retrospect terrifying: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=caffine%20in%2016%20tab...

[sandworm101]

If they are doing a red bull every day, caffeine might not be their primary health issue. And the glowing red eyes and increased physical strength might compensate for the potential brain plasticity issue.

[cma]

There's a known widespread gene variant that changes caffeine metabolism pretty drastically, so that 300mg and 50mg can be pretty close to the same, if it is different people.