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    Drinking strong coffee before exercising increases fat-burning, new study finds

    (canal.ugr.es)
    228 points curmudgeon22 | 13 comments | 28 Mar 21 17:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    PragmaticPulp ◴[28 Mar 21 17:42 UTC] No.26612365[source]▶
    > Subjects ingested 3 mg/kg of caffeine or a placebo at 8am and 5pm

    3mg/kg is over 250mg of caffeine for an average weight man. Twice a day makes that 500mg.

    An 8.4oz can of Red Bull contains 80mg of caffeine. They were giving these people an amount of caffeine equivalent to 6 cans of Red Bull. Not a perfect comparison because Red Bull contains other ingredients, but that's still a lot of caffeine. For another point of reference, that's 2.5 shots of 5 hour energy (200mg caffeine per bottle).

    To top it off, the subjects were caffeine-naive, so they had no caffeine tolerance. They must have been feeling extremely energetic.

    No wonder they burned more fat. I'm not sure this is going to translate to your casual coffee drinker or someone with a high caffeine tolerance.

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    hombre_fatal ◴[28 Mar 21 18:41 UTC] No.26612954[source]▶
    Almost seems like you're trying to sensationalize it by changing it to Red Bull, something that's actually pretty low in caffeine once you put marketing aside.

    How about comparing it to Starbucks' regular hot coffee sizes?

    - Short - 180 mg

    - Tall - 260 mg

    - Grande - 330 mg

    - Venti - 415 mg

    Is drinking a 12oz Tall at Starbucks really dropping your jaw?

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    1. coderintherye ◴[28 Mar 21 18:47 UTC] No.26613004[source]▶
    That's a fair point, Starbucks coffee has more caffeine than an average cup of coffee. I'm sure many people (including myself) are not aware of that.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-caf...

    replies(1): >>26613095 #
    2. arcticbull ◴[28 Mar 21 18:57 UTC] No.26613095[source]▶
    The amount of caffeine in a coffee depends on its extraction method, the grind, and to a lesser extent on roast. An espresso actually has much less caffeine than a cup of drip (60mg vs 200mg). Generally the longer you leave the beans exposed to water the more caffeine comes out, up to about 400 minutes when making cold brew. [1]

    I doubt Starbucks is deviously out to over-caffeinate its customers (although if they were, they've got my vote!) but rather the difference is attributable to variations in their brewing process.

    There's a limit to the amount of caffeine that can possibly come out of a bean, and so I would say that unless there's evidence they're spiking the brew, that Starbucks coffee is roughly the definition of an "average cup of coffee"

    A Venti is 590mL and 415mg of caffeine, 700mg/L of coffee. Based on the chart in [1] that would be roughly speaking the midpoint of roast kind at the 150 minute mark making cold brew, 10g/100mL of coffee beans (Figure 1). Or approximately a dark roast, coarse grind hot brew (Figure 3).

    [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740146/

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    3. leetrout ◴[28 Mar 21 19:05 UTC] No.26613163[source]▶
    I get so tired of people equating espresso with high amounts of caffeine. I don't know where that originated... maybe because of the high temp / pressure extraction and the oils making it so much richer?
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    4. SkyPuncher ◴[28 Mar 21 19:11 UTC] No.26613234[source]▶
    A "cup" of coffee is officially 8oz and typically between 80 and 100mg.

    Starbucks coffee doesn't really have a higher ratio of caffeine, just more volume than the official measurements.

    That being said, I don't know anybody that drink 8oz cups of coffee.

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    5. Godel_unicode ◴[28 Mar 21 19:22 UTC] No.26613343{3}[source]▶
    Well it is much higher caffeine/volume, it's just that you (typically) drink a much lower volume of it.
    6. dfee ◴[28 Mar 21 19:22 UTC] No.26613354{3}[source]▶
    A Starbucks Espresso shot has 75mg at 1oz.

    A Starbucks dark roast (short size) has 130mg at 8oz - that is 16.25mg/oz.

    That means the espresso has 4.6x the caffeine per volume. I’d say those people you’re tired of have something worth listening to.

    https://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/94fbcc2ab1e2435985...

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    7. beforeolives ◴[28 Mar 21 19:26 UTC] No.26613408{3}[source]▶
    I think the point is that there is a difference between a cup of filter coffee and an espresso drink (Americano, latte, cappuccino etc) with the same volume. The first one is well... coffee, the latter contains only a shot or two of espresso and the rest of the volume in the cup is hot water/milk.
    8. leetrout ◴[28 Mar 21 20:13 UTC] No.26614011{4}[source]▶
    But look who I was responding to: people think a single shot of espresso had more caffeine than a cup of coffee and that is not true.

    Starbucks drinks typically have 2 shots (such as a grande mocha) which gonna be around the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee

    9. gabrielsroka ◴[28 Mar 21 20:56 UTC] No.26614469{3}[source]▶
    I make coffee at home every day. I rarely go to places like Starbucks. I just measured my cup and it's 8 oz. I have one cup every morning.
    10. httpsterio ◴[28 Mar 21 20:58 UTC] No.26614489[source]▶
    there's also an approximate 30% difference in caffeine between Arabica beans and robusta beans, the latter having more caffeine.

    Starbucks use Arabica, typically Italian or French espresso based drinks ha e been made with robusta or an Arabica robusta blend.

    Starbucks coffee is not higher in caffeine compared to other cafés, it can actually be lower. The only sig ificant difference is portion sizes, like you mentioned.

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    11. js2 ◴[28 Mar 21 22:22 UTC] No.26615275{3}[source]▶
    Coffee "cups" are measured in units of 6 oz:

    https://www.triplebarcoffee.com/blog/how-many-ounces-are-in-...

    12. rolleiflex ◴[29 Mar 21 04:44 UTC] No.26617779{3}[source]▶
    My understanding is that almost no one drinks 100% Robusta, since it tastes something between burnt tire, wood (not in a good way, in a 'trying to bite raw timber' kind of way) and rubber. However it's very commonly used as, in a positive interpretation, to accentuate the taste of Arabica since it produces more 'crema' on espresso, and in a negative interpretation, as an adulterant to make coffee cheaper to produce.

    Here are some people writing about their experience of drinking 100% Robusta: https://old.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/6u2ef4/100_robusta_...

    13. okprod ◴[29 Mar 21 14:15 UTC] No.26621906[source]▶
    > An espresso actually has much less caffeine than a cup of drip (60mg vs 200mg).

    I think espresso has more caffeine per ounce than coffee does.