What Time Frame for the Caffeine Calculator?
Ever since the invention of our Death By Caffeine Calculator we are often asked one question in particular.
The one question, by orders of magnitude, that gets asked here more than any other is:
“It says that 10 bottles would kill me, but is that over a month, a day, a lifetime?!”
Let’s apply some common sense to this…
Lifetime?
If you died after a lifetime consumption of 200 cans of soda, most Americans wouldn’t make it past age 14. That’s clearly not the answer.
Monthly?
If you died after 200 cans of soda in a month, there would still be plenty out there who wouldn’t make it past age 30. It’s painfully easy to drink 6 cans daily, especially if you’re trying to stay awake to finish a project. Conversely, it’s about 142 cups of coffee for most coffee drinkers. That’s under 5 per day. Many people can drink more than that with few side effects. It’s not monthly.
Weekly?
Still not the time frame, but we’re getting warmer.
Daily?
That’s actually believable. If you managed to ingest that much caffeine in one day, you won’t be feeling so hot. In fact, you may be in serious trouble. Not everyone’s liver works at the same speed (caffeine sensitivity level), and some people have reported feeling the effects of caffeine for a full 12 hours – for most people this is more like 4-5 hours.
Here’s the correct answer:
Yes, it’s rare for people to die from the amount of caffeine in beverages.
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After 1 gram, you would be very sick indeed.
Unfortunately, there are some products that contain concentrated caffeine and these make it much easier for a person to overdose and some people have indeed died from taking in too much caffeine at once.
What Formula is This Based On?
Our Caffeine Calculator uses the LD50 (the lethal dose amount of a substance that will kill at 50% of the population) for caffeine. This on average is 150 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. For most adults, this equates to around 10 grams of caffeine.
Please use caffeine responsibly and adhere to the Caffeine Safety Guidelines that the world’s health authorities and we at Caffeine Informer recommend.
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