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Asked by jana to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 8 Mar 2016.
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Katy Kellett answered on 8 Mar 2016:
That is a very complex question, but interesting. It really depends on what someone overdoses on, all drugs are different.
It really comes down to the drugs exerting such an adverse chemical response on your body that it causes something such as your heart or brain to stop working. The whole body works on chemical responses and by effecting those so significantly by taking drugs it can have fatal consequences sadly.
For example (and probably the least gruesome one) MDMA which a lot of people know as ecstasy can lead to people drinking far too much water (far far more then a normal person would drink in a few hours) because they think they are thirsty. This causes you to drown the cells in your body of everything it needs to survive, and sadly this has caused a number of overdoses.
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Stuart Atkinson answered on 8 Mar 2016:
Yes, Katy’s right and I’m sure she knows more about this than I do! The amount of a particular drug that is fatal will vary a little between people, but different types of drug will have very different overdoses eg alcohol might be in 100s of mls, but the toxin from some tree frog might be in micrograms.
What they actually work on in the body will depend on the drug.
And then some prescription drugs can have a dose that isn’t that far from an overdose. In the past it was not uncommon for people to overdose accidentally on certain tranquilisers (not prescribed any more). -
Lauren Laing answered on 8 Mar 2016:
Katy is right, this will depend on the drug and the person. We all have different speeds of metabolism, this is the process of breaking down the drug and the excreting or removing this from the body. Our speed of metabolism is dependent on our age, body weight or sex!
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Anais Kahve answered on 9 Mar 2016:
It depends on many factors: the type of compound that you have taken, how you have taken it e.g. if you have swallowed it or if you have breathed it in, how old you are, your gender, if you have taken other compounds too e.g. caffeine, your general health, your weight…the list goes on! For example, take paracetamol. When you take normal amounts, you liver is able to detoxify and remove the paracetamol safely from your body. But if you take too much then the liver can’t cope and a process is switched on that actually makes the paracetamol more toxic. This more toxic form of paracetamol can kill you.
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