This Is What Happens When You Add Grapefruit Juice To Coffee

The world needs its caffeine fix to get going in the morning. Across the globe, approximately 3 billion cups of coffee were consumed on any given day as of 2019 (via the International Coffee Organization). We're with our fellow coffee drinkers. It can be tough to form a coherent sentence let alone tackle the challenges of a business day without coffee flowing through our veins. An 8-ounce cup of coffee contains somewhere between 80 and 100 milligrams of caffeine, and we consume anywhere from 110 mg to 260 mg of caffeine per day (via Medical News Today). The good news is that it hits your system fairly quick, taking about 45 minutes for the caffeine to work its magic and get your motor running. You can feel the effects of your cup of coffee for anywhere from 3 to 5 hours, but caffeine can stay in your system for up to 10 hours (via Healthline).

But what if you are pulling an all-nighter to complete a term paper or have to prepare a deck for a big presentation, and you don't want to drink more coffee but want to extend your caffeine buzz? This is where grapefruit is going to become your new best friend.

Grapefruit in its whole form or as juice with your morning, evening, or middle of the day coffee can help stretch your caffeine high so you feel like the Energizer bunny (via Spoon University). What's the science behind this pairing? 

Grapefruit and grapefruit juice contain a flavonoid called naringin (via EurekaAlert!). Naringin is what makes a grapefruit taste sour, but it also gets in the way of our digestive system's business-as-usual process of breaking down certain drugs. This results in these drugs and their effects lasting longer and more intensely. The effects of consuming grapefruit and its juice on a daily basis along with your coffee will build-up over the course of a week, making the interaction between naringin and caffeine stronger by the end of the week. This is why if you decide to do a little firsthand recon to see if grapefruit really does keep you hopping longer, do so responsibly and make it an as-needed affair.