ANSES on caffeine: what France's agency says

The answer often surprises people: ANSES sets no maximum caffeine dose. There is no “French limit” to hold up against the 400 mg a day everyone quotes — that figure comes from EFSA, the European authority.

What the French agency does is different, and more interesting. It measures what people in France actually consume, it rules on specific situations rather than on a single global number, and it has made energy drinks its principal caffeine file.

Why there is no “ANSES limit”

The agency works from thresholds established at international level — levels above which a given effect becomes documented — rather than publishing its own ceiling for the general population.

That isn’t a gap; it’s a division of labour. Food-safety reference values are assessed at European level, and the 400 mg a day for a healthy adult is EFSA’s. ANSES looks at what happens in France against those thresholds.

What it measures: real exposure

This is its most concrete contribution, and it’s rarely quoted. From actual consumption data, ANSES estimates the share of the population exceeding each threshold:

Threshold exceeded	Share of the population
Anxiety effect — adults	~30%
Anxiety effect — children and adolescents	1–2%
Development of tolerance — ages 3 to 10	11%
Development of tolerance — ages 11 to 14	7%
Chronic toxicity suspected — adults	~7%

These lines aren’t danger levels, and reading them that way would get them backwards. They’re points beyond which a specific effect becomes plausible and documented. Exceeding the anxiety threshold doesn’t mean being anxious: it means sitting in the zone where caffeine can contribute to it.

One figure is worth pausing on: 11% of 3- to 10-year-olds. At that age caffeine doesn’t come from coffee but from sodas, chocolate and iced teas — and a lower body weight makes the same amount count for considerably more.

Its three recommendations

On three points ANSES is entirely explicit:

• Moderate your intake of caffeinated drinks.
• Do not combine alcohol and caffeine.
• Avoid combining caffeine and physical exercise.

The last two are its signature. They aren’t recommendations about how much but about with what — an angle numerical reference values don’t cover at all, and one aimed at real behaviour: the night out where an energy drink serves as a mixer, and the workout that follows a can.

The groups it names

The agency calls for particular care among:

• pregnant and breastfeeding women;
• children and adolescents;
• people sensitive to the effects of caffeine;
• people with cardiovascular, psychiatric or neurological disorders;
• people with kidney failure or severe liver disease.

If you’re in one of those situations, that’s a conversation for a health professional rather than a website — which is, in substance, exactly what ANSES says.

Energy drinks, its real file

This is where the agency has done its most substantial work, with a 2013 opinion built on nutrivigilance, an adverse-effect reporting scheme unique in Europe. 257 cases were reported to it.

Its conclusions and recommendations:

• These drinks are advised against for children and adolescents, pregnant and breastfeeding women, people sensitive to caffeine, and those with certain cardiovascular, psychiatric or neurological conditions.
• Combining them with alcohol or with physical exercise is advised against.
• A 250 ml can delivers on average the caffeine of two espressos, or of more than two cans of cola — the order of magnitude covered in energy drinks vs coffee.

On the cardiac arrests reported to it, the agency’s analysis is measured and worth knowing: they very probably occur in people carrying genetic predispositions, most often channelopathies that are asymptomatic and undiagnosed. In other words a pre-existing individual factor, not an effect to be expected in everyone.

What it measured in French coffee

Less well known, and rather useful day to day: in 2013 ANSES analysed the coffee produced by the formats that had just taken over French kitchens — soft pods and capsules — against filter coffee. It recorded 50 mg of caffeine per 100 ml for filter, about 75 mg for pods and close to 150 mg for capsule espresso.

Official French figures on caffeine by brewing format are scarce, which is what makes this one worth having; it’s covered in capsules, pods or ground.

ANSES and EFSA don’t say quite the same thing

Worth knowing, so that two different readings from two sources don’t come as a surprise.

The ANSES opinion dates from September 2013. EFSA’s is from January 2015, and it is more permissive on several points: up to 400 mg a day and 200 mg in a single dose raise no safety concern for a healthy adult, 200 mg a day during pregnancy, and negative interactions with taurine or alcohol are judged unlikely — where ANSES had called for avoiding the pairing and for further research.

Two agencies, two remits, two dates. The French one looked at French adverse-event reports; the European one assessed doses. Neither cancels the other.

What to take away

If you came looking for an official French number, there isn’t one — and that is the right answer to the question. The numerical reference is European; the French contribution lies elsewhere: in measuring what people actually drink, in two pairings to avoid, and in a list of situations that call for medical advice.

CaffIQ replaces none of those reference points and doesn’t pretend to: it simply tells you, in milligrams, where you stand in your day — because no reference point is much use while you’re guessing what you actually drank.

CaffIQ provides general estimates, not medical advice. For any health question, talk to a qualified professional.