LD50 stands for “lethal dose, 50 percentile” – or median lethal dose. This is the dose at which if a population takes something, half will die.
- The LD50 of VX nerve agent is 0.00035 oz for skin contact.
- The LD50 of water is 90g/kg for a rat. Extrapolated on a human: 6.3kg (12 lbs, or 1.5 gallons) for a 70kg human being.
That said, 8 glasses of water a day won’t kill you and 1e-20 ounce of VX nerve agent won’t kill you.
So what’s the point? The poison is not in the material – it’s in the dosage.
Drinking 3 gallons of water a day is unlikely to have much more of a benefit than drinking 1 gallon. Working out for 8 hours a day is unlikely to have a better outcome vs. working out 30-90 minutes a few times a week. Forcing yourself to work on weekends and/or working 20-hour days is unlikely to be more productive than focusing for 4-5 hours/day Monday through Friday. In fact, most of these cases overdosing are detrimental:
- 3 gallons of water a day could kill you, 1 gallon may not.
- Working out for 8 hours a day will cause too much stress to muscles, preventing recovery. This’ll cause your strength and hypertrophy gains to be low as compared to working out a lot less.
- Overworking yourself for the myth of promotion or an above-inflation raise will just burn you out, not make you more productive. Your mind needs rest and working less can yield much better productivity. Imagine a scenario where an ineffective mind takes 20X longer to solve the same problems that a well-rested mind would. This hypothetical scenario would mean a 4-hour day from a refreshed mind is about 4X more productive than a burned out mind working 20 hours.
In a lot of cases, less is more.
In what areas of your life might you be overdosing, where doing less could give you more results?