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  • 10 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: July 3rd, 2023
  • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.workstoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Guinness wasn't proud of this one.
    11·
    11 hours ago

    And claiming that the story is fake because “36 red bulls would literally kill a horse” is just plain old hyperbole.

    While I’m not big on equine nephrology, or veteranary physiology in general even, I suppose that it’s reasonable to assume, that not 100% of horses would survive ingesting the caffeine equivalent of 14l of coffee at once. But going from “some horses would die from this” to “this story is definitely fake” is just bad reasoning.

    Sure, it’s reasonable to question the story, but dismissing it because a horse couldn’t do the same? WTF?

    Not every horse, human, or humpback whale would survive consuming 36 red bulls. But it’s not unreasonable to assume that a majority of humans would survive.

    Personally I want to believe the story, if for nothing else than it’s not a story about how the world is going to shit.

  • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.workstoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Guinness wasn't proud of this one.
    2·
    12 hours ago

    Yes, there’s always going to be outliers, that’s how statistics work. That LD50 is 192mg/kg just means that 50% will have died by that point. Some individuals can survive beyond that point, while 50% couldn’t.

    I’m not saying that 50% of the population will be honky dory a-ok after surviving, what killed the first half. Just that it’s not unlikely that you could survive consuming 18l of red bull over the course of 10h23m. You’d probably still be pretty fucked up, but surviving is a subset of being fucked up, not the other way around.

  • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.workstoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Guinness wasn't proud of this one.
    3·
    2 days ago

    One thing is how you’d feel, another is survivability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine states that LD50 for oral caffeine ingestion in rats is 192ppm, and only estimates the value for humans. Wikipedia doesn’t exactly state it but it’s safe to assume that the surviving 50% of rats will definitely not have had a good time though.

    But “36 red bulls” is how much? I can buy red bull in 0.25l and 0.5l cans in local stores, what is available in the US in unknown to me, so I’ll assume equivalent can sizes. So between 9l and 18l of red bull over about 11hrs. IDK that sounds like a lot of fluid no matter what. Maybe the electrolytes in the red bull will prevent water intoxication, but he’d definitely have had to pee a lot. Perhaps his kidneys would have a hard time following along with the excess electrolytes, but enough to become hypertonic?

    Anyway a liter of red bull contains 320mg of caffeine, and thus 9l is 2.88g and 18l is 5.76g. Assuming a 100kg human body that’s 28.8-57.6ppm spread out over 11hrs.

    Had the caffeine been ingested all at once, then he’d at worst have hit 30% of LD50. But given that the subject probably didn’t ingest 18l of fluid instantly, because then the story would include that in the title, the consumption was spread out. Elimination half-life for caffeine is 3-7hrs, meaning that the initial caffeine could be reduced to 1/8 by the end.

    I don’t have the time to do the integral equations, but my best bet is that our subject plausibly could survive, but his kidneys, penis and psychiatric state could do with a check up.