Can you get drunk on coffee, and how much is too much?

Coffee does not contain alcohol, so it cannot make a person drunk in the usual sense. The debate began when a netizen said a traditional Chinese medicine doctor banned her from coffee with the warning that continuing would be fatal. She quit for three months, felt better, then had one cup, and the post drew heated discussion.

Commenters traded claims about anemia, calcium loss, digestive problems, and worse, though several of those links remain unproven. What is clearer is that heavy intake can cause jitters, poor sleep, and a racing heart, and that people who feel dependent on coffee may need to cut back rather than quit outright.

A daily cup of coffee has become standard practice for many office workers, and some even have more than one cup a day. But can drinking too much coffee take a toll on your health? Recently, a netizen shared her experience of being given a coffee ban after seeing a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctor, who even said, "If you keep drinking, you'll die." The post sparked a huge discussion, with some seriously analyzing when coffee should be avoided, and others questioning the TCM doctor's judgment. Should we drink coffee or not, and how can we drink it healthily? Let's take a look at the truth behind this discussion.

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For workers who get up early to commute, a daily cup of coffee has become standard practice, and some friends even feel one cup isn't enough to wake them up, so they pour another. For sleep-deprived office workers, it's truly hard to give up this "life-extending water."

However, excessive coffee intake can also put some strain on the body. A while ago, a netizen posted that she had some health issues, and after seeing a TCM doctor, she was explicitly banned from drinking coffee and told, "If you keep drinking, you'll die." With the supervision and help of family and friends, she quit coffee for three months, her health gradually improved, and after three months she still couldn't resist secretly sneaking her first cup after the ban.

She originally just wanted to share her little joy of the day, but unexpectedly it drew heated discussion from netizens. Many people in the comments seriously analyzed which situations are unsuitable for drinking coffee, and some shared their own experiences to tell everyone what problems excessive coffee drinking can cause.

"People with anemia had better not drink it, it affects iron absorption," "Autonomic nervous system disorder, I've been advised to quit coffee for over three years," "I've experienced excessive coffee drinking, I drank all 7 cups in the test and almost died," "Drinking too much coffee causes pancreatic cancer," "If you drink too much coffee, I don't know about other things, but it really drains calcium," "Gastrointestinal dysfunction, I was banned from drinking it."

You really don't know until you talk about it—once you do, you discover coffee has so many potential harms, scaring a netizen who was drinking takeout coffee into quickly putting down the cup in hand.

But coffee lovers who are already addicted to caffeine don't see it that way, voicing their opinions one after another: "A morning without coffee is incomplete," "If I can't drink coffee, you might as well kill me," "I have a cup of black coffee plus a pot of green tea every day, and after fifteen years I haven't seen any problems," "The main thing is living in the moment," "Some people drink and smoke and live to 100, but drink a little coffee and they drop dead?"

Some netizens even suspected the TCM doctor the blogger saw wasn't skilled enough, "Can people live without coffee? I suggest switching doctors," "According to this quack's logic, tea can't be drunk either, it's pretty hilarious," "Drink whatever you like, don't believe so-called TCM experts."

Whether this TCM doctor who issued the coffee ban to the blogger is truly unskilled is hard to judge from the blogger's description alone. But as the saying goes, things reverse when taken to extremes—excessive caffeine intake does indeed add strain to the body, and for some people with caffeine intolerance, excessive intake may trigger palpitations, rapid heartbeat and other uncomfortable reactions.

Of course, coffee isn't all bad. Some scientific studies show that moderate caffeine intake is beneficial for some people. A netizen mentioned, "Even the lobby of a TCM hospital in Beijing has a coffee machine." If coffee were truly all harm, how could Starbucks and Luckin still hold a place in quite a few hospitals?

Everything in the world has two sides, and coffee is no exception. As long as you control your caffeine intake, happily drink coffee and happily be an office worker—"just enjoy the moment while you can!"

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.