Can too much coffee kill you?

I’ve seen tons of studies in the past year or two that indicate that drinking coffee – and sometimes lots of it – can be great for you. It can help you concentrate, lower your risk of certain cancers, make you a happier and more optimistic person, and it can even make you live longer. But there is a new study out that suggests that drinking coffee is not always sunshine and rainbows. This study found that adults under the age of 55 who drank more than 4 cups of coffee a day were at greater risk of dying than their peers who did not consume as much coffee.

The study sparked a little bit of worry, but most of it was likely undeserved, since the study was unable to determine why the participants under the age of 55 had an increased risk of death – especially since there was no increased risk of death when you looked at the roughly 50,000 people included in the study as a whole. The study authors were also unable to suggest a plausible reason why there was an increased risk of death or what it was about coffee consumption specifically (they didn’t track caffeine levels, for instance) that might raise the risk of death.

So, for me, I’m sticking to my habit without any real fear of death at a young age. Even though I might just be more optimistic because I have a cup of coffee in my hand right now.