What time frame for the Death by Caffeine Calculator
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.
If you died after a lifetime consumpution of 200 cans of soda, most Americans wouldn’t make it past age 14. That’s clearly not the answer.
If you died after 200 cans of soda in a month, well, most of the loyal readers here might not have made 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 me. That’s under 5 per day. I can drink more than that with few side effects. It’s not monthly.
Weekly? That’s just a stupid measurement.
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, 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 answer: IT’S HOW MUCH YOU HAVE TO HAVE IN YOUR SYSTEM AT ONE TIME.
Yes, it means that it’s practically impossible to kill yourself with caffeine. Practically. Don’t actually try it! After 1 gram, you’ll be a sad panda. If you manage to even challenge the number, you’ll be a schizophrenic, crazed panda, or a passed out panda. And if you’re passed out, you might get your wallet stolen.
94 Comments
Woops, I screwed up my calculations on required coffee intake for LD-50, i was basing it off caffine, not including the rest (water, other coffee products)
It’s actually 200mg * 50 = 10000 * 1/0.93 = 10.753 liters = 2-5 times the size your stomach can hold.
Also the chances are GREATLY increased if you have underlaying heart conditions that you may or may not know about, so it may be possible to die from coffee, energy drinks or even coke.
Also prolonged use of high levels of caffine may decrease the needed levels for LD-50, eg you have take 5g every day for a week with an LD-50 of 10g, since your blood cells shrink from excess consumption, the next week, your LD-50 might be at 9.5g, next month at same rate (8-7g) etc. Much like how alcohol can slowly kill you.
And if you are drinking or taking over drugs, it may increase your effects of the caffine or vise-verse.
This may also cause or raise heart problems if you smoke, take other drugs or drink excess amounts of alcohol.
For a healthy adult, about 10grams of caffine in 3-6 hours (time it takes to get processed by the liver) weighing 50-66kg (200-150mg/kg) can give a LD-50 asumming that no other drugs are in the system at the time period.
Damn i must be on my way to death soon i drink like a gallon of expresso a day and im at the point that 1,500mg of caffeine then i can go right to sleep see you all where we all go when we die…..peace
I gotta have at least a morning cup a joe.
yay, that means my new found consumption of one 24 ounce can of AMP a day won’t hurt me! Does anyone else have the problem of caffeine not having any effects on your fatigue? like it doesn’t do anything for you? Yeah, for me sometimes it works the opposite way… it makes me more lethargic. yay.
40 cans of Rockstar Juiced HERE I COME! Seriously — our stomachs will explode before we even drink a tenth of the liquids required to acquire such a high amount of caffeine (especially those of you who have a 200+ can amount) in a short amount of time.
Minor correction, but LD-50 isn’t 50% of a lethal dose, it is the dose (usually in mg drug/kg body mass) needed to switch off half of the test subjects (usually not precocious, red-headed, singing orphans).
LD-50 doesn’t tell you what you really want to know though, you’d really want to know what the minimum (and maximum, if you’re the curious sort) fatal dose is in an otherwise healthy individual.
Elantrix was right about one thing though: God help you if you try to take a fatal dose of caffeine in the form of a commercially available beverage because your stomach, glomeruli, and/or bladder will be blown to ribbons if you even get a fraction of the way beyond the amount your body will try to tell you to stop at.
Just as a psa, DO NOT — DO NOT — DO NOT consume any appreciable quantity of caffeine if you are taking (or have taken within the previous 7-14 days) a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI). “Caffeine interacts with MAOIs (including drugs with MAOI activity such as furazolidone, isoniazid, INH, linezolid, procarbazine, and high doses of yohimbine). Dangerous cardiac arrhythmias or severe hypertension can occur because of the potentiation of caffeine’s sympathomimetic effects by MAOIs.” (Clinical Pharmacology, 2007)
Occasionally, I come across a news report where an athlete has died from over-hydration – drinking too much water messed up their electrolytes. So, it would probably be more likely that you would die from that before you would die from an OD of caffeine if you drank only caffeinated beverages.
(There was also a recent article about a woman who died from a radio contest where people tried to see who can drink the most water without having to go to the bathroom – do a search on “hold your wee for a wii” if you want to know more)
What if someone grinded up a lot of caffeine pills equaling around 10-15g and mixed it with water. THen wouldnt they just die pretty quickly?
The most reason you would die from caffeine would be that you injested so much of it in one time that it would make your heart beat so fast it would either rupture or go out of sync and stop, hence die.
Whats the easiest way to fight a caffeine craving??
I’ve tried a lot but not much helps…
4 hours? That’s how much I get tortured everyday standing on my feet.
Can’t die easily with caffeine, but can’t stop drinking it.
So in the meantime, drinky drinky.
If caffeine does not stimulate you, i.e. Red Bull before bed has little effect, then you’re most likely A.D.D. Talk to your Doctor. You’ll have to experiment with increasing dosages, but when you find it, the difference is amazing!
I have A.D.H.D so my balance is all whacked out i took a 5 hour rush some other muscle energy drinks and a big can of monster. Went right to bed. It all helps me relax and concentrate. Basically i took ridilin since i was in 1st grade to 10th and thats pretty much speed.
@ the first few comments… I wasn’t aware that caffeine was radioactive. I suppose, it makes sense pharmaceutically though. I consume 1.5g to 1.8g of caffeine daily via Spike Shooter, so I think I’m pretty resistant to Caffeine.
I’m 14, and I consume anywhere from 200-700mg of caffeine daily. Since I’ve drank Diet Pepsi since i was 7, i think i’ve built up a good resistance to caffeine. With 650mg, I can usually stay up till 7am, but then what’s the point of going to sleep? haha
@KevinG
-Everything is radioactive, at least a little bit. but i think the expression he meant to say was chemically processed in 4 hours, meaning the body wipes it out of the system. this is, afaik, not true. its at *least* four hours, and like the site says, it can be as long as twelve. it really depends heavily on the person.
i drink at least, AT LEAST, 10 cups of coffee a day, and I’m only about 17…so then i shoudn’t live past like 30…damn.
U guys are hyper nut jobs, im 12, and have maybe 200-400mg of caffeine daily. But nooo, u have to have 1.8grams(1800mg). CRAZYYY!! Email me at youtuber.rigitoni@gmail.com with ANY q’s on any energy drink 
The timeframe depends on a lot of different factors, but overall can vary from 10 minutes to 20 hour.
It is believed if you have a low tollorance to caffine, the LD-50 of caffine can be 250mg in a 10-30mins.
Scientific studies has determined 150mg/kg is an average LD-50, if you about 50kg your LD-50 is 7.5g or if you are 80kg you need 12g for an LD-50. But this may also vary how strong your liver is, there has been a report that a man has suvived from 24g.
This also depends on the time it takes to digest, in most humans, it takes 5-6hours to digest caffine, but if you are pregnaut, it can take 18-20hours.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to get an LD-50 from drinking energy drinks, coffee etc, no matter how much you drink, your stomach WILL not be big enough to hold in about 10g of caffine, 200mg of coffee (100mg caffine) X 50 = 5000mg * 1/0.93 / 1000 = 5.3 liters… a human body can hold about 2-4 liters.
So the only way you are going to get LD-50 is by consuming pure caffine, usually by pills. if you have 100mg pills, you need 50 pills for a LD-50 (50% of a lethal dose) or 200mg pills you need 25 of them.
At about 1g of caffine in about a 1-1.5hours you will notice symptoms of Acute caffeine poisoning gives early symptoms of anorexia, tremor, and restlessness.
At about 5g in about 1hour+, you will notice nausea, vomiting, and confusion.
7-8g you may have delirium, seizures, and hyperglycemia.
10-12g (LD-50) usually at 2hours+ you may notice nervousness, irritability, anxiety, muscle twitching, insomnia, palpitations and hyperreflexia.
So the average human has about 10g in 4-6hour period, in about 2 hours you will have a 50% chance of becoming a fatal victom of caffine.