In the wikipedia article on LD50, the example for sucrose seems absurd. How can you administer 30 kg of sucrose per kg bodyweight? Drop a bag on the rat?
29,700,000,000 ng = 29.7 g, so the lethal dose is about 1/34 of the body mass: you’d have a full stomach with that amount inside you, but I suppose it could be done.
I think your math is off by a factor of 1000 – as Giles points out, 29,700,000,000 ng/kg is about 30 grams per kilogram.
My question is, what would actually happen if you consumed a lethally huge dose of sugar? We know how lethal doses of things like water and salt kill you … what does sugar do at a lethal dose?
I think your math is off by a factor of 1000 – as Giles points out, 29,700,000,000 ng is about 30 grams* per kilogram.
My question is, what would actually happen if you consumed a lethally huge dose of sugar? We know how lethal doses of things like water and salt kill you … what does sugar do at a lethal dose?
ETA: OK, my second question is, have they actually determined the LD50 of sucrose experimentally, or is this just a guess?
Of course I’m wrong by a factor of 1000. That’ll teach me to taunt the people who think having kilograms as the base unit is bad. My brain was so stuck in the “nano” means a factor of 10^9 mode it took me a while to accept your replies were right. :smack: