Calibrating the Caffeine Advantage: More Is Less

Gina Kolata, New York Times health writer and a veteran runner, has known for years that coffee helps runners run faster, swimmers swim faster, rowers row faster, and cyclists cycle faster. But how much coffee should someone drink to go faster? Until recently, findings suggested that a competitive athlete needed about 5 to 6 milligrams of
caffeine per kilogram of body weight, meaning that a 176-pound man would need about 400 milligrams of caffeine, or 20 ounces
of coffee, to make a meaningful difference. But now, Kolata reports, researchers at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra have found that athletes get the full caffeine effect with as little as 1
milligram of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. That means that instead of 20 ounces
of coffee, a 176-pound man could drink 4 ounces of coffee, or about two
12-ounce cans of Coke. Wait, there’s less: Other research, done at the University of Guelph in Canada, found that if athletes drank 9 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, they actually did worse. Yes, it’s confusing. What to do? Grab a cup of coffee and read more in the New York Times,