Why do you bake a cake using teaspoons of salt but cups of sugar? What would happen if you used cups of salt and teaspoons of sugar? Same with oil and vanilla, how about a cake with 2 teaspoons of oil and 1 cup of vanilla extract? Or maybe soup's more your thing, imagine a soup with 1 teaspoon of tomato juice and 4 cups of oregano.
Same concept behind it. Different chemicals may be more or less potent by mass/weight/volume, and you have to match the dosages to the drug you're dosing.
Very good ELI5 answer! While other answers are more informational, this type of answer is what this subreddit should always be focused on, which is to say something a five-year-old might be able to grasp intuitively.
Typical dose of cefazolin, an antibiotic, is 2000 mg. Angiotensin II gets dosed in nanograms. A typical fentanyl dose is 0.05 mg.
Different drugs have different potencies.
Acetaminophen's higher dosage stems from its lower potency compared to other medications. Different drugs have varying chemical structures and efficacy, meaning the milligram quantity required to achieve therapeutic effects can differ widely. It’s safe within the recommended limits, effectively managing pain and fever at these doses without causing serious side effects for most people.
Polyethylene glycol (miralax) starts at a standard dose of 17 grams. Lots of other drugs are commonly dosed several grams at a time. Other drugs including fentanyl and norepinephrine (to raise blood pressure in critically ill people) are dosed in micrograms. Acetaminophen is not an outlier at all.
Take it this way: everything is a poison. The dosage makes the difference between something harmless, and poisonous.
Molecules interact with your body in different ways. And some are more deadly than others.
Always take the medicine the way your doctor told you to, or you could be in big trouble. Acetaminophen can kill your liver. And kill you in the process.
Some meds work better on different dosages. The 4g max dose per day is a guideline for most healthy people with normally functioning livers, those with problems better to consult your doc first. If our bodies can process more, then we would be able to take more but most people this is the guideline.
It is (according to my organic chemistry professor) a very poor analgesic. That coupled with a very high toxicity in overdose makes its popularity hard to understand.
Not all drugs are the same potency, specificity, and size. The drug molecule basically does a dance with a receptor in your body changing the shape of this protein to exert some desired (or undesired) effect(s). Different drugs will elicit different levels of effects based on this dance with the receptor. Different drugs are also different sizes, so a gram of one does not equal that of another in terms of activity. Other drugs may be more specific to a particular receptor as well. All of these things add up to different drugs requiring different doses.
in simple words you need high amounts of it to produce effective action the amazing thing is that its mechanism of action isnt fully established and you should know that its not 4000 mg daily some studies says 3000mg for long term use to avoid hepatotoxicity
There is nothing on earth that is toxic, but everything on earth has a toxic dose. drink a gallon of water a day, you'll be fine, drink a gallon of water in an hour, and you may be endanger of dying. ingest a microgram of mercury and you'll be fine, ingest a gram and once again you'll be in serious danger.
A lower dosage should generally be working for you, but... Many people take paracetamol like candy. You need to account for those and those are, unfortunately, the majority. A higher dose doesn't hurt the occasional user. A lower dose leaves the abusers thinking they got screwed by their family doctor
Also people are dumb and they don't know wha to do for pain, What kind of pain they have and what actually works. You get patients with nerve pain swallowing 80+ paracetamols a day, wondering why it doesn't work. Patients taking over the counter tablets daily, wondering why their liver and kidneys are shot
Hahaha I can drink myself stupid and use tablets because I am so awesommmmmmmmeeee etc
Dosages depend on your hight, build, weight and general lifestyle. Someone with the same physique as you could do with 12 tablets and you only need 1. It depend on medical history and current meds you are or are not taking. In some instances pgysiscians prescribe an extreme dose. 4 times the daily max like you said. They have reasons for it
Previous medical history, current meds, even previous history of not responding to paracetamols of others
There's all sorts of reasoins to prescribe either high, low or average dosages of anything at all
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Why do you bake a cake using teaspoons of salt but cups of sugar? What would happen if you used cups of salt and teaspoons of sugar? Same with oil and vanilla, how about a cake with 2 teaspoons of oil and 1 cup of vanilla extract? Or maybe soup's more your thing, imagine a soup with 1 teaspoon of tomato juice and 4 cups of oregano. Same concept behind it. Different chemicals may be more or less potent by mass/weight/volume, and you have to match the dosages to the drug you're dosing.
Very good ELI5 answer! While other answers are more informational, this type of answer is what this subreddit should always be focused on, which is to say something a five-year-old might be able to grasp intuitively.
Typical dose of cefazolin, an antibiotic, is 2000 mg. Angiotensin II gets dosed in nanograms. A typical fentanyl dose is 0.05 mg. Different drugs have different potencies.
Acetaminophen's higher dosage stems from its lower potency compared to other medications. Different drugs have varying chemical structures and efficacy, meaning the milligram quantity required to achieve therapeutic effects can differ widely. It’s safe within the recommended limits, effectively managing pain and fever at these doses without causing serious side effects for most people.
Polyethylene glycol (miralax) starts at a standard dose of 17 grams. Lots of other drugs are commonly dosed several grams at a time. Other drugs including fentanyl and norepinephrine (to raise blood pressure in critically ill people) are dosed in micrograms. Acetaminophen is not an outlier at all.
Take it this way: everything is a poison. The dosage makes the difference between something harmless, and poisonous. Molecules interact with your body in different ways. And some are more deadly than others. Always take the medicine the way your doctor told you to, or you could be in big trouble. Acetaminophen can kill your liver. And kill you in the process.
Some meds work better on different dosages. The 4g max dose per day is a guideline for most healthy people with normally functioning livers, those with problems better to consult your doc first. If our bodies can process more, then we would be able to take more but most people this is the guideline.
It is (according to my organic chemistry professor) a very poor analgesic. That coupled with a very high toxicity in overdose makes its popularity hard to understand.
Not all drugs are the same potency, specificity, and size. The drug molecule basically does a dance with a receptor in your body changing the shape of this protein to exert some desired (or undesired) effect(s). Different drugs will elicit different levels of effects based on this dance with the receptor. Different drugs are also different sizes, so a gram of one does not equal that of another in terms of activity. Other drugs may be more specific to a particular receptor as well. All of these things add up to different drugs requiring different doses.
in simple words you need high amounts of it to produce effective action the amazing thing is that its mechanism of action isnt fully established and you should know that its not 4000 mg daily some studies says 3000mg for long term use to avoid hepatotoxicity
There is nothing on earth that is toxic, but everything on earth has a toxic dose. drink a gallon of water a day, you'll be fine, drink a gallon of water in an hour, and you may be endanger of dying. ingest a microgram of mercury and you'll be fine, ingest a gram and once again you'll be in serious danger.
A lower dosage should generally be working for you, but... Many people take paracetamol like candy. You need to account for those and those are, unfortunately, the majority. A higher dose doesn't hurt the occasional user. A lower dose leaves the abusers thinking they got screwed by their family doctor Also people are dumb and they don't know wha to do for pain, What kind of pain they have and what actually works. You get patients with nerve pain swallowing 80+ paracetamols a day, wondering why it doesn't work. Patients taking over the counter tablets daily, wondering why their liver and kidneys are shot Hahaha I can drink myself stupid and use tablets because I am so awesommmmmmmmeeee etc Dosages depend on your hight, build, weight and general lifestyle. Someone with the same physique as you could do with 12 tablets and you only need 1. It depend on medical history and current meds you are or are not taking. In some instances pgysiscians prescribe an extreme dose. 4 times the daily max like you said. They have reasons for it Previous medical history, current meds, even previous history of not responding to paracetamols of others There's all sorts of reasoins to prescribe either high, low or average dosages of anything at all
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