Some questions answered…

A lot of people have been wondering how the Death by Caffeine Calculator works, and how to interpret the results. Here’s the basics you need to know:

The lethal dose is based on the LD_50 for oral ingestion of caffeine, and a lot of studies report different numbers. The one I’m using is about 150mg/kg. If you were to get caffeine injected into your bloodstream, as little as 2 grams can kill a grown adult. LD_50 is a medical term to indicate the dose that kills 50% of the test subjects. I’m not sure how they figured it out for people…
The lethal dose varies considerably depending on your tolerance. One of the calculator updates will try to take that into effect.
The number of cans/bottles/etc the calculator gives you assumes you can drink it all immediately, or one-after-another. Physical limitations mean that you probably can’t drink enough of anything to kill you, but you can certainly start freaking out, hallucinating, go into shock or seizure, all sorts of cool things. Many people have correctly pointed out that the liquid capacity, or sugar contents, or any number of other things would probably prevent you from ingesting that much caffeine
With caffeine pills (like Vivarin), or strong caffeinated mints, it’s possible to get close, or hit, the lethal dosage. Don’t go doing something stupid like take a whole box of vivarin, you’ll end up in the hospital. Just look at the Erowid Experience Vaults for caffeine.

Posted in Caffeine, Site News · August 19th, 2005

A small request: Could you add chocolate soy milk (and I suppose chocolate milk) to the calculator/database? Thanks.

Have you thought of adding another dropdown menu for 12oz, 1liter, 1.5liter and 2 liter bottles too?

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