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I've also heard "50 cups a day" estimated for Voltaire. If true, it probably means something more like 50 shots of espresso, but I'm still skeptical in both cas

by mcbits 10y ago

I've also heard "50 cups a day" estimated for Voltaire. If true, it probably means something more like 50 shots of espresso, but I'm still skeptical in both cases.

digi_owl 10y ago
50 cups is up around the LD50 for caffeine if drinking drip coffee, iirc.
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  Depends on body mass obviously, but it's closer to twice that. Also depends on the coffee, whether you're talking traditional 6oz coffee cups or standard English 8oz cups, etc.
- zeroer 10y ago
  Maybe not if you work up to it.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Exactly, tolerance is a massive factor in whether you get a headache, or a seizure.
- sndean 10y ago
  Yeah, the LD50 of water is maybe ~6-7 L [0]. If ~100 mL / cup, you're approaching that volume of coffee with 50 cups. The small amount of sodium in coffee may help. (Ignoring how fast these are being consumed.) I'm sure the Voltaire thing is just "the dude drank a lot of coffee." [0] http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321 http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321
- refurb 10y ago
  A typical cup of coffee has ~100 to 200 mg of caffeine. Here is what happens when people are dosed with 30,000 mg in one go[1] It’s not clear just when someone realized that things might have gone a tiny bit wrong, but the story does mention “violent side effects”, which you’d have to think were neurological seizures, and those must have kicked in pretty shortly. The students were hospitalized immediately and put on dialysis, and appear to have recovered with no permanent damage, which is pretty remarkable (one of them has some short-term memory loss). Each of them apparently lost over 20 pounds during the whole thing, which makes me hope that this doesn’t catch on as some sort of idiotic emergency weight loss plan. Being hospitalized near death will take off the pounds, but it’s not recommended. There’s a literature report of a fatality with a 12 gram dose, so I think we can conclude that (1) taking multigram amounts of caffeine is extremely dangerous, and (2) these two students were fortunate to have survived, and without immediate medical care they might well not have. [1]http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/01/27/how-not-to-do-it-dosing-volunteers http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/01/27/how...
HeavenBanned 10y ago
How accurate are we at determining historical sarcasm, really? I think we'd be very surprised how much writing which we consider gospel is actually just thinly veiled ancient sarcasm.
dang 10y ago
I've heard that too (and the associated joke—someone: "Don't you know it's a slow poison?", Voltaire: "It must be very slow.") but have never been able to authenticate either. Anybody have sources?

by mcbits 10y ago

I've also heard "50 cups a day" estimated for Voltaire. If true, it probably means something more like 50 shots of espresso, but I'm still skeptical in both cases.

digi_owl 10y ago

50 cups is up around the LD50 for caffeine if drinking drip coffee, iirc.

Godel_unicode 10y ago
Depends on body mass obviously, but it's closer to twice that. Also depends on the coffee, whether you're talking traditional 6oz coffee cups or standard English 8oz cups, etc.
zeroer 10y ago
Maybe not if you work up to it.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Exactly, tolerance is a massive factor in whether you get a headache, or a seizure.
sndean 10y ago
Yeah, the LD50 of water is maybe ~6-7 L [0]. If ~100 mL / cup, you're approaching that volume of coffee with 50 cups. The small amount of sodium in coffee may help. (Ignoring how fast these are being consumed.) I'm sure the Voltaire thing is just "the dude drank a lot of coffee." [0] http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321 http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321
refurb 10y ago
A typical cup of coffee has ~100 to 200 mg of caffeine. Here is what happens when people are dosed with 30,000 mg in one go[1] It’s not clear just when someone realized that things might have gone a tiny bit wrong, but the story does mention “violent side effects”, which you’d have to think were neurological seizures, and those must have kicked in pretty shortly. The students were hospitalized immediately and put on dialysis, and appear to have recovered with no permanent damage, which is pretty remarkable (one of them has some short-term memory loss). Each of them apparently lost over 20 pounds during the whole thing, which makes me hope that this doesn’t catch on as some sort of idiotic emergency weight loss plan. Being hospitalized near death will take off the pounds, but it’s not recommended. There’s a literature report of a fatality with a 12 gram dose, so I think we can conclude that (1) taking multigram amounts of caffeine is extremely dangerous, and (2) these two students were fortunate to have survived, and without immediate medical care they might well not have. [1]http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/01/27/how-not-to-do-it-dosing-volunteers http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/01/27/how...

HeavenBanned 10y ago

How accurate are we at determining historical sarcasm, really? I think we'd be very surprised how much writing which we consider gospel is actually just thinly veiled ancient sarcasm.

dang 10y ago

I've heard that too (and the associated joke—someone: "Don't you know it's a slow poison?", Voltaire: "It must be very slow.") but have never been able to authenticate either. Anybody have sources?