Posted by Lindenblüte on October 30, 2006, at 11:09:05
In reply to way I feel I'd volunteer for LD 50 (double blind) » bassman, posted by ronaldo on October 30, 2006, at 9:44:28
I bet it varies widely, especially for us humans. Rats and mice are usually all so inbred. Often a study just tests a single strain of rats.
Think about how much the lethal dose of alcohol varies. If one's liver is used to metabolizing a lot of alcohol, but hasn't yet been damaged from regular binge drinking, one can usually tolerate a lot more alcohol (milliliters ingested/kg or whatever) than someone who's having their first drink.
Also, men and women tend to have different rates of metabolizing and clearing drugs. One reason why is because women's bodies contain less water per kilogram of bodyweight (because we have more fat, less muscle, on average. ) So, if a drug is water soluble, then men have more water to dissolve it in. Drugs that are soluble in fatty substances, like (steroids) show this opposite pattern for women...
plus, who wants to sign up for that study? The "volunteer participants" may have some "issues".
I can see the newspaper ad now
"Study is seeking volunteers to participate in a study of drug lethality. Roughly half of subjects will be compensated for their time and receive free medical care..."
-Li
poster:Lindenblüte
thread:698250
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061028/msgs/699018.html