death by coffee

i have to make this post quick since i still need to finish my part of the review of literature we would need for our paper and it's already 2:18 am. and to all my friends in the blogosphere: i'm really sorry for not commenting or at least tagging your blog, but i still read your posts. promise.

i love my coffee, and i love it in various ways. it's just like sex: at times you want it strong, at times you feel like going for mild, sometimes you want it sweet, and sometimes you want it with different toppings. some people go only for one flavor. but in the many different tastes i want my coffee, i always want it hot. haha.

i surprised myself by listening to my chem class, and i'm now taking notes, which, before our first exam, i didn't care to do.

i learned in chem that caffeine, like many other substances, has its own lethal dose. lethal dose is the weight of poison per unit body weight, which, when translated, means that only a certain amount of a substance can kill you. each individual, because of difference in body weight, has his or her own lethal dose of a substance.

which goes on to say that everything is poisonous, it only depends on how much you take. some subtances, like botox, need only a microgram of intake for it to kill you (read: botox, when injested, can kill a person. and when they say it is used to flatten wrinkles on your face, it only deadens your facial muscles. by disintegrating the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, it causes muscle paralysis, which, i think, is baaaaad). so i never really believed in botox. when i'm happy, i want to show my laugh lines. and when i'm angry i'd rather show it on my face instead of other people getting clueless of how i feel. as what any grandparent would say: one wrinkle on your face is one unforgettable moment in your life.

okay, back to coffee. the lethal dose of caffeine is 0.15 grams of coffee per kilogram of body weight. i'm about 49 kilograms, so it means that i would need about 7.35 grams of caffeine to kill me.

no, the 7.35 grams of coffee isn't in just one cup. since an average cup has about 50-200 mg of coffee, it would take an estimate of 50-200 cups for me to get to heaven (or go to hell). if i take my coffee strong, it probably would be around just less than a hundred cups to kill me.

i'm not suicidal, i usually have one cup a day. or two. or three when life gets hectic.

lethal dosage also explains why it's so easy for thin people or children to get killed by intake of a poisonous substance than for fat people. so it doesn't hold true na masamang binhi ay madaling mamatay. for poison, it's always how much you take.

so for those suicidal ones who drank poison and are still alive, it just means you're fat. hahaha.

i'm not encouraging anyone to drink poison or anything. just wanted to share, because there's always a threshold of how much your body can take. everything can be potentially harmful if taken too much (and it also means i have to cut down on my chocolate intake. but wait, i'm not a dog. hahaha).

yes, it's true that too much of something is harmful. so stop binge eating. hahaha.

(disclaimer: i'm not an expert or anything of this, just an attentive student. yah right. so instead of reading about my babbles, ask you doctor about lethal dose of substances.)