Coffee calculator reveals if your brew habits are healthy or need improving

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world and a new calculator can help determine if you're drinking too much.

The brewed beverage is needed by many people first thing in the morning to perk up, but it is known for its high caffeine content. In high volumes, this can lead to a number of health issues ranging from anxiety to stress and even stomach pains, but a safe amount can actually be healthy.

Now, one microbiologist has created a nifty tool that can help figure out if you're coffee habits are healthy. Julia Kopczyńska, a PHD student at the Polish Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, has teamed up which scientist Alvaro Diez to create the Healthy Coffee Calculator.

It measures how good or bad your habits are and, based on your score, gives expert tips on how to improve them. The Healthy Coffee Calculator is fairly simple to use and asks five questions.

The first is how many cups of coffee you drink in a day, which type you brew, your bean or roast type, whether you add milk and finally if you use sugar or sweeteners.

Once you submit all information, you receive a score between one and a hundred. The higher the score, the better your drinking habits and if it's too low, you'll get some recommendations on how to improve.

You can check out the Healthy Coffee Calculator here.

Is coffee healthy to drink?

There are certain beliefs that coffee is bad for you to drink, but this isn't always the case.

But according to Julia, such theories stem from past studies that link the beverage to conditions like heart disease and asthma. However, these findings are also linked to study participants who were heavy smokers, meaning this could be the wider root of such health problems.

However, more recent research provides strong evidence that drinking unsweetened coffee may be beneficial for health. According to Harvard Health, consuming between two and five cups a day is to a lower likelihood of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver and endometrial cancers, Parkinson’s disease, depression - and may prevent early death.

How much coffee is too much to drink?

Despite its benefits, this doesn't necessarily mean the more the better and balance is important.

According to Julia, the recommended amount of cups for a typical adult is between one and five eight ounce cups - with two or being an ideal amount to reap the benefits. This depends on how strong the coffee used is in terms of caffeine content.

Up to 400 milligrams (mg) of caffeine a day is the base amount that is safe for human consumption. Beyond five brews may pose health risks, with this amount being shown to raise the risk of heart disease, according to The Mayo Clinic.

Short term impacts with over drinking coffee include:

• Headache

• Insomnia

• Nervousness

• Irritability

• Frequent urination or inability to control urination

• Fast heartbeat

• Muscle tremors

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