Science Proves That Caffeine Would Have Killed the Entire Cast of 'Friends'

Sometimes, science and math pay off — and tell us that at the rate the entire cast of Friends drank coffee during their 10 seasons, they'd probably all keel over. 

That's what the latest reporting from Scientific American reveals; the love of oversized coffee mugs, coffee, and caffine while hanging at Central Perk would have had disastrous effects in real life. Kyle Hill breaks it down: If each cast member of Friends presumably drank two 20-ounce cups of coffee for each episode, that would total up to 445 gallons of coffee over the course of 10 seasons. Sounds harmless, no? But the amount of caffeine is what's particularly alarming: "If you distributed all the caffeine the friends ingested over the decade at Central Perk, it would be enough of the drug to send almost 300 people to the hospital — if not outright kill them," writes Hill. So you know, there's that. Be careful, Joey! 

And because one episode doesn't nearly capture the essence of each of the friends' lives, Hill then estimates that if each episode of Friends represented a span of a week, they're really ingesting about 3,100 gallons of coffee — "enough to fill over half a freight container." With all the research coming out on caffeine (and caffeinated foods), perhaps this deeper dig into Friends should have us a little more worried for our dear friends. Or inspire a Saturday night marathon of Friends DVDs — whatever works.