Coffee has long been known as a drink rich in health benefits. Coffee not only helps us stay awake, increases heart rate, stimulates mental and intellectual activities, but also creates a positive psychological refreshment, making us feel more relaxed. However, there is a phenomenon that nearly everyone feels after drinking a certain amount of coffee, which is thirst. So the question is, can coffee dehydrate your body?
Does coffee dehydrate you? The answer is yes, but if you drink coffee in the recommended amount, you will not become dehydrated.
The thing is, coffee contains an extremely rich amount of caffeine. This is a type of nervous system stimulant that has many effects on the brain. In addition, caffeine can also have a diuretic effect if used in high doses. Therefore, the more caffeine you consume, the more it affects hydration – a process that causes dehydration in the body.
In other words, the consumption of coffee leading to dehydration may be exaggerated because it is a diuretic beverage. Basically, it can cause your body to make more urine than usual by increasing blood flow to the kidneys. If you pee more, you’ll become dehydrated, that’s simple. Some studies have shown that caffeine has the strongest diuretic effect in people who previously did not drink coffee regularly, but suddenly consumed too much caffeine.
In moderation, coffee really doesn’t dehydrate you. And even if you drink quite a bit of caffeine (up to 300mg), it’s still unlikely to cause a visible diuretic effect. Essentially, coffee may make you pee more because it’s a diuretic, but that urine output may not be enough to dehydrate your body. In fact, studies show that for caffeine to have a significant diuretic effect, a person needs to consume more than 500mg of caffeine per day – the equivalent of drinking about 5 cups or 1.2 liters of brewed coffee.
Does that mean you don’t have to give up your morning coffee habit for this reason? Staying hydrated is still an important part of overall health, but you don’t have to give up the habit of drinking one or two cups of coffee a day just because you’re worried about dehydration. As long as you drink caffeine in moderation, there’s nothing to worry about.
To know if your body is dehydrated, you can observe the color of your urine. The darker the urine color, the more dehydrated the body is. At this point, you need to rehydrate your body by adding more water, that’s all.