Death by Coffee? 628
Clif Griffin writes "Slashdots question of the year, are you ready for this? No? Too bad, you'll hear me anyways. Will drinking 100 cups of coffee (the good kind, not that crappy decaf mocalatte crap) in 24 hours kill a person? Sure, there is one way we can find out but we can't let myself die under mysterious circumstances."
The Long Answer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:4, Interesting)
I once read a story by a Conan Doyle (do not know if it was Arthur or a relative) in which reference was made to a French torture that consisted in forcing the victim to drink (gulp actually, they used a funnel) great quantities of water until they confessed or died. Anybody can confirm this?
Re:The Long Answer (Score:2, Informative)
It's well demonstrated in the movie "Francois Premier [imdb.com]".
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
... And Google [google.com] is my friend, yes. It was called the "water cure" or "extraordinary torment". Thirty pints of water forcibly administered to the victim.
Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Informative)
A Google for water torture "Conan Doyle" gives The Leather Funnel [eastoftheweb.com] by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as fourth result, which must be the story you read..
A Google for water torture inquisition will then give you more details than you probably wanted (once you get past the pr0n).
Now, what was I doing...?
The Leather Funnel--found on Project Gutenberg (Score:3, Interesting)
The Leather Funnel
My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris.
His house was that small one, with the iron railings and grass
plot in front of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from
the Arc de Triomphe. I fancy that it had been there long before
the avenue was constructed, for the grey tiles were stained with
lichens, and the walls were mildewed and discoloured with age. It
looked a small house from the st
Re:Too much coffee: Caffeine overdose and drowning (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too much coffee: Caffeine overdose and drowning (Score:5, Informative)
89.6 cups is a lot of volume so it is unlikely that one could drink that much at once. The question posed was whether 100 cups in 24 hours would be fatal. Since the metabolic half life of caffeine is 4 hours, this problem becomes a little more complicated. Assuming the 100 cups were spaced evenly throughout the 24 hour period (one each 14.4 minutes), we can calculate the total caffeine in the bloodstream at any time durring the 24 hour period.
At one cup every 15 minutes, the level of caffeine reaches an equilibrium with the rate of degredation arround cup #70 with a blood level of 2.4g -- much less than the LD50 of 13.4g. Even if you were drinking a cup every 5 minutes, the blood level would stabalize around 7.2g -- in the danger zone but still likely survivable especially with medical attention.
Caffeine is a dierettic (makes you pee) and so your biggest risk would likely be dehydration. But that's another story entierly.
-----------------
Just in case:
Drugs affect different people in different ways. Don't try doing your own experiments.
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Beer does not kill people; people kill people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Informative)
No, coffee isn't dehydrating because it contains too many electrolytes. It's dehydrating because caffeine is a diuretic, i.e. a drug that induces urination. In any case, though, the comment about serving with a glass of water points out something important- that you can theoretically overcome issues with overhydration/dehydration/mineral depletion/etc. by drinking something else or taking electrolytes at over the same time period that you're taking the coffee, negating its negative effects (other than the potential caffeine toxicity).
Re:The Long Answer (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, as a result the National Health Service here in Britain recently changed decades-old advice and now allows people to have tea after operations. Any medics here confirm that?
J.
Coffee Dehydration is a Myth (Score:5, Informative)
Check out this debunking page [ific.org].
An excerpt (for the lazy):"Lawrence E. Armstrong, a professor of exercise and environmental physiology at the University of Connecticut, found that caffeine is not the dehydrating demon some people believe. In fact, he concluded that caffeine is no more a diuretic than water."
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Informative)
yes, caffeine is a diuretic. meaning that it directly affects your kidneys in a manner that increases their urine production. in addition, though, caffeine is a vasoconstrictor. so it causes the overall volume of your cardiovascular system to decrease, which increases blood pressure, which increases urine production. in addition, that vasoconstriction also affects the smooth muscle lining your bladder, causing its tone to increase. thus, its volume capacity to h
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:4, Informative)
Caffeine is a stimulant to the nervous system and increases the blood pressure by causing the injection of adrenaline, which in turn increases breath and heart frequency, thus bettering the nutrition of the body and making you feel awake and alert.
But caffeine is not the single ingredient of coffee. Coffee contains about 700-2500 different ingredients (The different sources give different numbers). Many of them are created during the roasting process, and the way the coffee beans are roasted thus strongly influences the later taste of the coffee. Many of those ingredients are solulable in water, thus increasing the electrolyte side of the balance.
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Interesting)
KABOOM.
Every time.
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Informative)
TOXICOLOGY OF CAFFEINE OR COFFEE OVERDOSE
from http://rcm-medicine.upr.clu.edu/publications/sidn e y_kaye/toxicology-of-caffeine.htm
From the Institute of Legal Medicine, UPR School of Medicine, Medical Center, Rio Piedras, P.R.
Caffeine is probably the most widely used of all drugs. It is found in coffee, tea and "cola" drinks. Can it be harmful, or is it a perfectly safe refreshing beverage?
Millions of people drink countless cups of coffee daily - some
Hyponatremia (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed.
A British girl Leah Betts died from Hyponatremia a few years ago. The official story, and the way it was hysterically presented in the press, was that she died from taking a single Ecstasy pill, whereas actually she basically drank so much water her brain swelled up and killed her.
Even sadder, most people still believe she was killed by Ecstacy...
Never let the facts get in the way of a good anti-drug hysteria whuppin' up. Remember the people on acid supposedly jumping out of windows in the '60s?
Re:Hyponatremia (Score:3, Informative)
One of the effects of ecstasy is that the user may lose the ability to monitor and control water levels in the body--so simply put, they do not know how much water they have or need. As a result, the two most prevalent causes of death as a result of ecstasy usage are heatstroke (severe overheating, and not enough water) and drinking too much (hyponatremia).
Re:Hyponatremia (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hyponatremia (Score:4, Interesting)
It does happen. I had a close friend from college who jumped off the roof of a 4 storey building after tripping for a week.
He landed feet first, and so survived. But it took him a year to walk again.
Re:Hyponatremia (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hyponatremia (Score:3, Insightful)
If Leah Betts hadn't been on Ecstacy, she wouldn't have taken the foolish action of overdosing on water, would she?
This was as much a drug-related death as a drunk driver who rams a telephone pole, or a junkie who gets shot to death trying to break into someone's home. Media coverage of drug use may be somewhat more hysterical than it needs to be, but I'd rather have people think illicit drugs are more dangerous than they actually are than to have them think that a substance cooked up in some stranger's k
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Interesting)
So what if you drank Gatorade (or another well made sports drink), which has an electolyte balance designed to match the body's?
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Funny)
Coffee doesn't contain electrolytes? Heh.
Re:actually (Score:3, Funny)
What can I say? I used to have the closest geek equivalent of a drinking problem.
The REAL answer (Score:5, Funny)
Its not coffee itself that kills, but the plastic cup that reacts with the coffee, and generates an acid called tri-hidro-cafeine, that is lethal.
Here [getfound.com] is the complete story.Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Funny)
Hey everyone! Look! I found our missing poll option!
Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Long Answer (Score:3, Funny)
I just cannot believe some people were sick enough to inject this into defenseless animals for the only sake of evaluating how much they'd take before dying.
Futurama HO!!! (Score:4, Informative)
"I think we were just saved by an orange Blur!!!"
I wish they would bring that show back.
Ummmmm...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, yea. IAAS. (I am a scientist).
Quitting coffee... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I quit, I reduce my intake by halves -- in other works, today a pot, tomorrow half a pot, and so on, until it's just a sip, and then nothing.
That makes it fairly painless to shake the monkey (no headaches).
And then it's extra fun to drink that next pot a few weeks later... ;)
Re:Quitting coffee... (Score:5, Funny)
I thought that you were supposed to smoke that stuff, no wonder you shake monkeys!
Re:Good Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ummmmm...... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ummmmm...... (Score:3, Funny)
What's your point?
Re:Ummmmm...... (Score:2, Funny)
I cannot help with your coffee drinking problem, but oh Holy Day! I have been the pleasure of telling you that there is most definitely good news for you today sir!
I am Abdul Shakalakabangbang, from New Timur. Our Prime Minister, may his soul flatulate freely in heaven, was tragically killed in a mushroom stuffing contest. Since I his trusted most aide, he leave me lots of money. Due to political unrest, and a bad case of hemorroids, I am needing to remove this money from the c
Re:Ummmmm...... (Score:2)
True. Among them, the most hazardous is DHMO [slashdot.org]
Really, like, kill yourself? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of like on the "Bambi" episode of The Young Ones back in the 80s, when Rick tries to kill himself by overdosing on a bottle of pills he's just found in the medicine cabinet.
"Vyv, Vyv, uh, can you, like, really kill yourself with laxative pills?" Neil asks his other housemate, Vyvyan, who replies, "I don't know, Neil, but I'm going to stay and find out."
Re:Really, like, kill yourself? (Score:4, Informative)
At 100 cups, Fry finds some inner mind power new age shit, and ends up saving everyone from a fire because time basically slows for him and he can bring everyone out of the burning building. Overall a pretty good episode.
Fun with Numbers (Score:5, Informative)
Over the course of 24 hours, a lot of the effect would probably be mitigated by the time span. I don't know how long it would take you to get the caffeine out of your system, maybe someone else does. Google says around 13% of the caffeine in your body is removed every hour, but I haven't a clue how correct it is. Sounds dubious.
Re:Fun with Numbers (Score:3, Informative)
Numbers are wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Follow these directions. (Score:5, Funny)
Spread out over 24 hours? Hmm.. that's 4.167 cups/hour.
If you were wise and countered the stimulant effect with the soothing liquid-love that is Guinness [guinness.ie] every half hour you should be in fine shape. Can't say the same about your digestive system the next day (read: "100 coffee + 48 Guinness == SplatterBum(tm)") but you'll be around to enjoy it.
disclaimer i: I'm not an MD or biologist, however I drink with the ones from work quite often.
disclaimer ii: (for your family) if he follows these directions and dies, my name is Rob Malda.
Re:Follow these directions. (Score:3, Funny)
Your math assumes that he would be drinking the same amount every hour. How do you expect him to stay up and drink during those night time hours?
Obligitory Futurama Reference (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligitory Futurama Reference (Score:3, Funny)
Mod parent up! (Score:3, Informative)
A news reel reveals that Zapp Branigan has overthrown a planet of arachnids and as a result, Earth President Nixon is rewarding the entire population of the planet a $300 "fun bill."
The rest of the episode consists of vignettes of how the Planet Express gang (and Kif) utilize their refund. Fry buys 100 cups of coffee; Leela has a unique encounter with a whale; Bender buys theft tools to steal the world's most expensive cigar; Professor Farnsworth
Look it up.. (Score:5, Informative)
I bet 500 Euro on you dying (Score:5, Funny)
I'd Say... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, you mean all at once?
refer to mr. Groening (Score:5, Funny)
The result is total awareness, inner bliss, and superman-like physical abilities
GO FOR IT DUDE!
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Lethal Dose (Score:2, Informative)
a cup of coffee contains ~80-120mg of caffine, so 100cups of coffee could well kill you...
if you drank them all simultaniously.
one after another... you'll just feel REALLY shit.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE THAT MUCH CAFFEINE! (Score:5, Informative)
For about an hour I had a huge, ever-increasing buzz. Then it became difficult to walk. Then I started to throw up. I was vomiting for about 10 hours straight.
Unless you want to go through the same hell that I did, lay off the massive coffee dose.
Re:UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE THAT MUCH CAFFEINE! (Score:5, Informative)
I used to drink around 20 cups a day... (Score:2)
LD50 (Score:3, Informative)
or approximately 10 grams for the averaged size human. There is about 125 mg in 1 cup of coffee, which is about 12.5g/100 cups. So yes, there is little over a 50% chance it could kill you.
if you dont die (Score:2)
One way to find out (Score:2, Funny)
Depends (Score:2)
Wouldn't surprise me. (Score:2)
Natural selection (Score:5, Funny)
5 gallons (Score:2)
Caffeine, like all alkaloids, is bug poison. (Score:3, Interesting)
Caffeine, like all alkaloids, is bug poison. Alkaloids were invented by tropical plants to discourage bugs from eating.
Alkaloids are people poison, too, of course, but a bigger dose is required.
Warning: Coffee contains DHMO (Score:5, Funny)
For those who are not aware of the dangers of this substance, dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO.
Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Exposition to it gaseous form may cause burns, permanent scars and even death.
Symptoms of DHMO ingestion include sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance.
For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
Dihydrogen monoxide is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain. It has been found that malignant cancer cells only develop in its presence.
The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation.". It's commonly used as an industrial solvent and coolant, as a fire retardant, in the distribution of pesticides, in abortion clinics,and lots more.
I created a community against DHMO in Orkut [orkut.com]. You're all invited to join it.
You can also check the official Dihydrogen Monoxide FAQ [dhmo.org]
Yes, it can. (Score:4, Funny)
"*we* can't let *myself* die"? (Score:2)
Hmmm (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Easy one: Maybe! (Score:4, Informative)
Hence, 100 cups of coffee is about 10-15 grams of pure caffeine.
The lethal dose varies.. different people react diffferently. That's why there are LD50's.. which is the value which statistically kills half the subjects. (or, you could view that as a 50%/50% chance)
The LD50 for caffeine in rats (orally) is 192 mg/(kg body mass)..
A typical male human weighs about 80 kg.. 15 grams of caffeine divided by that is 187 mg/kg.
So, yes that amount of caffine can definitely kill someone. I wouldn't take my chances.
Reminds me of college (Score:2)
100 grams Caffine
1 pound Hydroflouric acid (non-aqueus)
some nitric acid
etc, etc
Everything was going fine until I told them to deliver the chemicals to my dorm room. It seems they didn't like that for some reason.
So I never did get my 100 grams of pure caffine. I could've had
Mysterious? (Score:2, Funny)
So I say, Go for it. If you die, we'll let folks know.
27 cups is safe (Score:2)
27 cups has been proven to be safe...
2001 Coffee-Thon [archive.org]
-Rick
If you want to know... (Score:2)
And then something happens....
Didn't kill me. (Score:2)
So, no. It won't kill you.
I guess you could say... (Score:2, Funny)
I remember... (Score:2)
That said, drinking 100 cups of coffee in a 24 hour period will cause some discomfort. When I was younger, I drank two pots of coffee in a day, and wound up going to the infirmary the next day with dehydration.
enema! (Score:2, Funny)
maybe you can also experiment to see how many cups of Decaf you have to drink in order to kill yourself.
Quick! do it fast!
Or you could try it this way... (Score:2)
OT. I hope everyone has seen the rest of the AF items at Think Geek [thinkgeek.com] too. If not, check it out!! [thinkgeek.com]
Depends on how much you weigh.. (Score:5, Informative)
That means the lowest lethal dose reported in the literature was 192 mg of caffine per 1 kilogram of weight of the victim. I'll let someone else look up plausible values of caffine content in coffee.
It is certainly possible to kill yourself with caffine, you just need enough of it.
I found a link [coffeefaq.com] for content of the beans, the values are around 1.3 %. So 100 grams of beans contains 1.3 grams of caffine, or 1300 mg.
Eating 100 g of beans is well over the limit, assuming any of my math is right :)
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted it would take a large amount of water or coffee to kill someone, but if taken enough it would kill you.
It can make you want to die (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to work mostly in the field but was in the office on a chilly day working on some new equipment. I had learned that my coworkers, who loved coffee, hadn't had chocolate covered coffee beans. I brought in 1/4 pound. They each tried one bean.
This left me absent-mindedly munching them and pouring repeated cups of coffee. I ended up eating the whole box and drinking over a pot of coffee.
By quitting time I was quite sick and facing a commute across the SF-Oakland bay bridge. I found a box and lined it with a bag in case I threw up and endured the commute - not fun when you are extremely hyper and sick.
I got home and just wanted to curl up in bed but every time I tried I was way too jumpy and had to get up again. My heart was pounding so hard and fast that it scared me.
My recommendation: don't do it - it is really, really unpleasant.
Further reading: the caffeine material safety data sheet [ox.ac.uk]
Re:It can make you want to die (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a trained professional... (Score:5, Interesting)
But it wasn't anywhere close to killing me, as far as I can tell, unless you count exploding in a nasty, stinking mess had I gone cold turkey from coffee.
And no, this is not an April Fools joke!
Same as overdosing on Marijuana (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to be a caffeine addict. (Score:3, Interesting)
These days I drink a few small pots of tea.
Once, for a laugh, I ate two bags of chocolate covered coffee beans out of a bowl with a spoon and then went down the pub. I had a killer evening, really fast and witty (everyone thought I was on speed) followed by a night full of shivers and shakes and just wanting to stop being awake, but not being able to.
Worth doing the once
For the record, I've also tried a cup of coffee on the half hour every half hour. Took me till lunch to get really weirded out and unhappy. Finally I've tried (with instant) making a saturated solution and drinking it. Not good either.
J.
Oh, Goodness Yes (Score:3, Informative)
It is worth noting that caffiene, like cocaine, is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. Once you pass an amount as little as 250 mg (depending on your weight) you will begin to feel the effects of caffiene intoxication, which include a very reduced sensitivity to pain, and eventually a feeling of intense, vibrant physical energy. As dosage increases however, psychological effects such as paranoia and anxiety are common, and panic attacks are often induced (it's happened to me). Keep going, and you will manifest serious cardiovascular effects, including heart arythmia and fibrilation. A myocardial infarction (heart attack) can be induced, particularly in individuals prone to heart disease. Such cardiovascular effects are likely to cause physical incapacitation before you can drink your way to the LD50, but if you figure out a way to maintain your rate of ingestion then yes, you will very likely die.
Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it will. 6 gallons of water in 24 hours will cause water intoxication (hyponatremia). That's when the ion content of your body becomes too low for neural activity to be maintained. About half that amount has been known to cause coma (http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_heal
An athelete drank that much and survived probably only because he was an athelete. (http://www.wonderquest.com/water-intox.htm)
There have been at least 2 deaths caused by a person drinking too much water (http://www.urban75.com/Drugs/drugxtc1.html ; http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2004/02_20
People don't need to drink near as much water as they're usually told. Common "wisdom" says to drink half a gallon a day. That's wrong. You need 1 milliliter of water for every calorie of food. That *is* two liters for a 2Kcal diet. But all the food we eat is in large part water. The USDA recommendations are quite clear on including that. Unfortunately nobody reads them.
Yes, I do know what day this is. This is the answer anyway.
LD50 = 192mg/kg (approx 72 cups for average adult) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
The 48 cans of coke are about the same as 12 cups of strong coffee. I assure that many people have had more than that over a twelve hour period and survived.
Of course, if your fathers friend had an existing heart condition (for example) the high amount of caffeine and sugar could have contributed to a heart attack or somethin
Re:Yes (Score:3, Funny)
I know a guy who died after tying his shoelaces. Deadly stuff, shoelaces.
I would hazard a guess that you are NOT an actuary.
Re:Sorry, I don't buy it (Score:2)
I'm sure other /.ers can top that if we switch to beer :-)