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Death by Coffee?
Clif Griffin writes "Slashdots question of the year, are you ready for this? No? Too bad, you'll hear me anyways. Will drinking 100 cups of coffee (the good kind, not that crappy decaf mocalatte crap) in 24 hours kill a person? Sure, there is one way we can find out but we can't let myself die under mysterious circumstances."
(Disclaimer): There are days when I consume a pot or so of coffee for myself, so I am not saying this out of any prejudice. However, the thing to remember is that there *are* pharmacologically active compounds in coffee, in particular caffeine. The effects of caffeine really depend upon the person and how well their liver enzymes are induced to take care of compounds like this, but 100 cups could be enough to give you anxiety, sweats, tremors dizzyness, GI cramping, dehydration (caffeine is a diuretic), and at higher (toxic) doses even heart arrhythmias, nausea and vomiting, symptoms of CNS toxicity involving ringing ears or damped sounds and flashing light and possibly convulsions. So, can it kill you? Possibly. So, my question to you is.......why would you want to drink 100 cups of coffee in a day? This isn't some dare or weird coffee enema garbage that someone is trying to foist on you is it?
Oh, yea. IAAS. (I am a scientist).
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100 glasses (~20 litres) of water would. Can't see how coffee would make it any better (or worse).
... And Google is my friend, yes. It was called the "water cure" or "extraordinary torment". Thirty pints of water forcibly administered to the victim.
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Gandhi, about Internet Security
Yeah but so does coffe, has electrolytes I mean. Although everything is relative. I at one point in time when on a biology research trip to Andros Island in the Bahammas was drinking 4 gallons of water a day. At less than 3 gallons I would dehydrate to the point I didnt pee for 2 days. At 4 gallons I would go twice a day. I didnt even sweat noticbly, but half the time I was in the water diving, but even on land between the breeze and the long sleeved cotton shirts absorbing then evaporating sweat. We had to monitor and log our water consumption.