LD50 of Common Materials - You Can Overdose on Everyday Items
Water - 6 liters at once
The things we don't think about that can kill us. Car accidents. Natural disasters. Drinking water. Yes, drinking too much water in a short amount of time can cause fatal water intoxication. It's not something you even think about being a possibility. You're hot or thirsty, you drink water. That's just what we are conditioned to do. I first heard of overdosing on water over a decade ago when a college student died from drinking too much water in a fraternity hazing. A few years later a woman died trying to win a Nintendo Wii from a radio station. There have also been numerous cases of young athletes drinking too much.
Surely it will never happen to you, right? Overdose deaths from water aren't very common but don't get carried away. It is recommended to only drink 20-40 ounces per hour. Drinking plenty of water is the best thing you can do for your body, just pay attention if you're outside or being active.
Caffeine - 150 mg per kilogram of body weight
Much more common to the overdose gang of commonly consumed items is caffeine. 150 mg/kg seems really high in my opinion. In the US, 80 percent of adults consume caffeine every day. The average adult has an intake of 200 mg per day, the amount in two 5-ounce cups of coffee or four sodas. Between my mother-in-law and my wife, there is ALWAYS coffee sitting in the coffee pot.
The American Association of Poison Control Centers had 2,516 calls in 2013 from people worried about possible caffeine overdose. Out of these, nearly 1500 were calls about kids consuming too much. Just recently someone in my extended family died from a heart arrhythmia triggered by caffeine. He was 16 and consumed a Mt. Dew, a McDonalds latte and an energy drink for lunch. Something I'm sure he had done many times before.
Alcohol - 13 drinks in 15 minutes
You guessed it. The king killer of commonly consumed consumables. According to data from the CDC, on average, six persons, mostly adult men, die from alcohol poisoning each day in the United States. Numbers taken from 2010-2012 have an average of 2,221 a year fatally overdosing on alcohol.
Liquor is fine in moderation. Everybody deserves the right to get a little sloshed from time to time, but you must know your limits. If you're trying to drink away memories of tragedy... don't. Get help. If you are drinking from your own personal fifth of whiskey as a 16 year old... stop! It's much better to be drunk than wasted, I promise.
That's really sad about your family member dying from a caffeine overdose. I used to drink so much coffee as a teenager that what your family member consumed doesn't even seem like that much in comparison.
I imagine I also missed a bullet a few time during my college years with my alcohol consumption. I can remember some of the hangovers. :( never again.
Having Jose Cuervo and Jim Beam as good friends when I was younger, I'm sure I dodged a few bullets too. Black out drunk has to be pretty close right?
LD50 is an interesting data piece. It can be a huge number for somethings like Valium which has no recorded lethal dose in humans, or incredibly small for something like cyanide. The perception of the average joe of the safety of commonly ingested substances is wildly off base. The amount of mercury in vaccines (before thimerosol was removed) for instance is well below toxic levels, yet you are correct that it is not very difficult to reach a toxic level of caffeine. Thoughtful piece.
When I was looking up LD50s, even though most were done on rats for obvious reasons, Botox came up as the most lethal substance known to man. I think the LD50 was something like a billionth of a gram per kg.
Botox is short for botulinum toxin, so as the name implies, it is a toxic substance. Like a lot of things, though, the dose makes the poison (credit to Paracelcus for this quote BTW, the father of modern toxicology as we know it). Most people are familiar with Botox used for wrinkles, and that is because it works as a neuromuscular deactivator. You can imagine if you gave a large amount of that substance, that once it reaches the heart, lungs, and other required organs, death would be imminent. Apply it strategically, however, and it can be used for many other things. It is used for migraines and neuropathic pain as well.
@schlees got you a $0.81 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice! (Image: pixabay.com)
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