8 ms·

So how does the poison work exactly? Why would it cause pain? (Genuinely curious and some quick searching doesn't lead to anything)

meindnoch 4y ago
It causes paralysis and death by suffocation.
gusgus01 4y ago
For botulinum, it's the toxin that causes botulism which can be viewed here: https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/symptoms.html https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/symptoms.html For saxitoxin, it's the toxin that's best known for causing paralytic shellfish poisoning. TL;DR: it attacks the bodies nerves and leads to muscle paralysis and can result in paralysis of the muscles needed to breath.
zabzonk 4y ago
cyanide is an enzyme poison - it stops all sorts of enzyme chains reactions from operating. as to why is it painful? well, that comes back to the question of why anything is painful.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > why is it painful? well, that comes back to the question of why anything is painful. This is such a jordan peterson style non-answer x 'what does it really mean to order a pizza"
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Not really. Pain is caused by things going wrong in your body. Poison causes things to go wrong. It’s not surprising most of them are painful.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      This is totally meaningless - carbon monoxide poisoning causes things to go wrong, and is painless death. Countless other examples.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        No it’s mostly just that oxygen deprivation is an uncommon edge case for a painless death.
      - jokethrowaway 4y ago
        We evolved different pain receptors to understand when we're being harmed. Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't common enough to warrant one.
      - LorenPechtel 4y ago
        It's painful if it's not fast.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    - numpad0 4y ago
      It feels obvious, but, how do something stopping existence cause signals rising? Do they have molecular scale system heartbeat monitoring, or what? I don’t see data to draw conclusions from.
      - PhasmaFelis 4y ago
        My understanding is that it stops oxygen uptake from your blood to your cells, so it feels like you're not getting enough air, like you're choking or drowning. But I'm not an expert.
        KMag 4y ago
        I've accidentally passed out from breathing helium from a 10-foot weather balloon. It's not painful at all, actually slightly pleasant. A lack of oxygen absorption doesn't directly cause discomfort. Increased blood CO2 is the main cause of discomfort from holding your breath for a long time. This is why hyperventilating to bring your CO2 level down helps you hold your breath longer. (The light headedness from hyperventilation is a consequence of low CO2.) I don't believe cyanide particularly increases blood CO2 prior to loss of consciousness. Also, I'm told carbon monoxide poisoning isn't particularly uncomfortable, and also interferes with oxygen transport. So, your proposed mechanism seems unlikely.
        KMag 4y ago
        Someone else here mentioned that cyanide poisoning is painful due to lactate production: that muscle burn from working out, but presumably worse, building until death. Other tissues besides muscles may also have lactate receptors; I'm not sure. If that's the case, your whole body may have that workout burn.
- kortilla 4y ago
  All kinds of things can fail in the body without causing pain. What a non-answer.
  - malfist 4y ago
    - s5300 4y ago
      A certain amount of apple seeds can also be turned into cyanide…
      - KMag 4y ago
        I think you're best off extracting the amygdalin from the apple seeds and letting the digestive tract hydrolyze the amygdalin into hydrogen cyanide, glucose, and benzaldehyde.
    - sdwr 4y ago
      If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    most kinds of things that fail in the body cause pain, especially if the failure is being caused by an outside agent. Why? Well one popular just-so story is that pain exists to let us know something is wrong so we will do our best to stop the pain, if the thing that is damaging the body is some sort of external agent then it seems reasonable under this explanation that there should be pain to get you to stop that external agent in some way. I think the more reasonable question is why did they develop a poison that was really painful?!?
    - zhengyi13 4y ago
      I expect this is less a case of them "developing" the specific poisons as much as looking at the pharmacopeia, and choosing something that was readily available, well understood, and efficacious/unrecoverable.
- PhasmaFelis 4y ago
  We can be more specific here, though. Cyanide inhibits cellular respiration. It prevents your body's cells from using the oxygen in your blood to produce energy. My understanding (I am not an expert, please feel free to correct me) is that this produces neurological signals that you're not getting enough air. So you feel like you're choking or drowning; you're gasping for breath, your whole body is screaming at you that you need to breathe, but you are breathing and it doesn't help. That's not a pleasant way to go.
  - davidzweig 4y ago
    According to my biology teacher, the urge to breathe is from receptors that detect a higher concentration of carbon dioxide (in blood I suppose), not an absence of oxygen. She also said if you placed cyanide in your mouth, it would kill on contact with the tongue, before you managed to swallow it.
    - InitialLastName 4y ago
      Your biology teacher might have been correct, but I had a science teacher confidently tell my class (in an affluent, otherwise science-respecting school) that humans don't land on the dark side of the moon because they would float away due to gravity working the other direction (hence the name).
- shadofx 4y ago
  Cyanide blocks both the mitochondrial ability to take in pyruvate and its ability to generate power, which means the cell can still attempt to use the excess pyruvate to generate energy by fermentation, resulting in lactic acid which stimulates pain receptors. Carbon monoxide poisoning on the other hand only interferes with oxygen delivery, which shuts down the mitochondrial ability to generate power but critically does NOT stop it from taking in pyruvate. Since there would be no excess pyruvate in the cell outside the mitochondria to undergo fermentation, there would be less lactic acid, and less pain. That's just my guess.

meindnoch 4y ago

It causes paralysis and death by suffocation.

gusgus01 4y ago

For botulinum, it's the toxin that causes botulism which can be viewed here: https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/symptoms.html https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/symptoms.html For saxitoxin, it's the toxin that's best known for causing paralytic shellfish poisoning. TL;DR: it attacks the bodies nerves and leads to muscle paralysis and can result in paralysis of the muscles needed to breath.

zabzonk 4y ago

cyanide is an enzyme poison - it stops all sorts of enzyme chains reactions from operating. as to why is it painful? well, that comes back to the question of why anything is painful.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> why is it painful? well, that comes back to the question of why anything is painful. This is such a jordan peterson style non-answer x 'what does it really mean to order a pizza"
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Not really. Pain is caused by things going wrong in your body. Poison causes things to go wrong. It’s not surprising most of them are painful.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    This is totally meaningless - carbon monoxide poisoning causes things to go wrong, and is painless death. Countless other examples.
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      No it’s mostly just that oxygen deprivation is an uncommon edge case for a painless death.
    - jokethrowaway 4y ago
      We evolved different pain receptors to understand when we're being harmed. Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't common enough to warrant one.
    - LorenPechtel 4y ago
      It's painful if it's not fast.
- ilyt 4y ago
  - numpad0 4y ago
    It feels obvious, but, how do something stopping existence cause signals rising? Do they have molecular scale system heartbeat monitoring, or what? I don’t see data to draw conclusions from.
    - PhasmaFelis 4y ago
      My understanding is that it stops oxygen uptake from your blood to your cells, so it feels like you're not getting enough air, like you're choking or drowning. But I'm not an expert.
      - KMag 4y ago
        I've accidentally passed out from breathing helium from a 10-foot weather balloon. It's not painful at all, actually slightly pleasant. A lack of oxygen absorption doesn't directly cause discomfort. Increased blood CO2 is the main cause of discomfort from holding your breath for a long time. This is why hyperventilating to bring your CO2 level down helps you hold your breath longer. (The light headedness from hyperventilation is a consequence of low CO2.) I don't believe cyanide particularly increases blood CO2 prior to loss of consciousness. Also, I'm told carbon monoxide poisoning isn't particularly uncomfortable, and also interferes with oxygen transport. So, your proposed mechanism seems unlikely.
        KMag 4y ago
        Someone else here mentioned that cyanide poisoning is painful due to lactate production: that muscle burn from working out, but presumably worse, building until death. Other tissues besides muscles may also have lactate receptors; I'm not sure. If that's the case, your whole body may have that workout burn.
kortilla 4y ago
All kinds of things can fail in the body without causing pain. What a non-answer.
- malfist 4y ago
  - s5300 4y ago
    A certain amount of apple seeds can also be turned into cyanide…
    - KMag 4y ago
      I think you're best off extracting the amygdalin from the apple seeds and letting the digestive tract hydrolyze the amygdalin into hydrogen cyanide, glucose, and benzaldehyde.
  - sdwr 4y ago
    If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  most kinds of things that fail in the body cause pain, especially if the failure is being caused by an outside agent. Why? Well one popular just-so story is that pain exists to let us know something is wrong so we will do our best to stop the pain, if the thing that is damaging the body is some sort of external agent then it seems reasonable under this explanation that there should be pain to get you to stop that external agent in some way. I think the more reasonable question is why did they develop a poison that was really painful?!?
  - zhengyi13 4y ago
    I expect this is less a case of them "developing" the specific poisons as much as looking at the pharmacopeia, and choosing something that was readily available, well understood, and efficacious/unrecoverable.
PhasmaFelis 4y ago
We can be more specific here, though. Cyanide inhibits cellular respiration. It prevents your body's cells from using the oxygen in your blood to produce energy. My understanding (I am not an expert, please feel free to correct me) is that this produces neurological signals that you're not getting enough air. So you feel like you're choking or drowning; you're gasping for breath, your whole body is screaming at you that you need to breathe, but you are breathing and it doesn't help. That's not a pleasant way to go.
- davidzweig 4y ago
  According to my biology teacher, the urge to breathe is from receptors that detect a higher concentration of carbon dioxide (in blood I suppose), not an absence of oxygen. She also said if you placed cyanide in your mouth, it would kill on contact with the tongue, before you managed to swallow it.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    Your biology teacher might have been correct, but I had a science teacher confidently tell my class (in an affluent, otherwise science-respecting school) that humans don't land on the dark side of the moon because they would float away due to gravity working the other direction (hence the name).
shadofx 4y ago
Cyanide blocks both the mitochondrial ability to take in pyruvate and its ability to generate power, which means the cell can still attempt to use the excess pyruvate to generate energy by fermentation, resulting in lactic acid which stimulates pain receptors. Carbon monoxide poisoning on the other hand only interferes with oxygen delivery, which shuts down the mitochondrial ability to generate power but critically does NOT stop it from taking in pyruvate. Since there would be no excess pyruvate in the cell outside the mitochondria to undergo fermentation, there would be less lactic acid, and less pain. That's just my guess.