Cyanide can be incredibly deadly at very small doses.
This is why it has been used throughout history as a poison in warfare, genocide, and murder.
Cyanide is a naturally occurring chemical found in some foods.
In fact, at some point in your life, you almost certainly have ingested cyanide.
So why aren’t you dead?
Let’s find out.
In nature cyanide is most commonly found in the seeds of plants.
Some of the more common foods that have cyanide in them are: cassava, lima beans, and almonds.
You have probably eaten at least one of these foods—if not all of them—so why aren’t
you dead, or at least incredibly sick?
The answer has to do with the amount of cyanide in each of the plants.
However, even relatively small doses can be harmful in some cases.
Cyanide can be found as a colorless gas such as hydrogen cyanide, or in crystalline form
like sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide.
Regardless of whether cyanide is a gas or solid, it is still deady.
However, when cyanide is in its gaseous state it is faster acting due to it having direct
access to your cardiovascular system.
People have died from breathing in cyanide, consuming the poison, and even from it leaching
through their skin and into the bloodstream.
People who work in industrial factories, or jobs that require them to be in close proximity
to the poison, are obviously more susceptible to dying from cyanide.
However, even if you live in the countryside away from any factories, you could still be
at risk.
The most common source of cyanide poisoning for people outside of industrial factories
that use the chemical is from smoking cigarettes.
Cigarettes contain trace amounts of cyanide, however, when someone lights up a cigarette
they are releasing the poison into the air.
So if someone is chain smoking, maybe stay a few steps away to reduce your own exposure
to the poison they are exhaling.
It is important to note again that cyanide in its gaseous state is more deadly than in
its solid form.
However, since the gas is relatively light, it tends to rise and disperse quickly.
So how does cyanide kill you?
To understand this question you’ll have to think back to your high school biology
class.
If you remember nothing else from the class you probably remember the mitochondria is
the “powerhouse of the cell.”
Cyanide disrupts your mitochondrial powerhouses and causes you to die from lack of energy.
At a basic level your mitochondria takes the sugar from the food you eat and the oxygen
from the air you breathe, and reassembles them into energy, carbon dioxide, and water.
This is called cellular respiration.
The most important part of this process is the production of energy.
Without it you literally cannot survive.
When cyanide enters the body it diffuses into the cells and starts connecting itself to
the proteins in the mitochondria that strip the electrons from oxygen molecules to make
energy.
Once the cyanide is bound to the protein, your mitochondria can no longer function as
it should.
You can think of it as the cyanide becoming an inhibitor for the mitochondria.
The cyanide keeps the mitochondria from being able to take the electrons off the oxygen
molecules and using them to produce the energy your cells and body needs to function.
It should come as no surprise that organs that use a lot of energy—such as the heart
and brain—are affected first by cyanide.
Your heart cells require a lot of energy to continuously pump the blood around your body.
Your brain and nerve cells require massive amounts of energy to control all life functions
happening within you.
Regardless of which cell the cyanide gets into, the result is the same.
The poison will shut down the energy making process of the mitochondria, and cause the
cell to die due to lack of energy.
Once enough critical cells in the body die this way the end result is always the same.
The person dies.
So, how much cyanide is enough to kill you?
There are a few factors that determine the amount, but it is never very much, since cyanide
is incredibly toxic.
As mentioned before, inhaling cyanide is much more dangerous than ingesting it through food
or water.
And although touching cyanide poses less of a risk, even skin contact with the poison
can kill you.
As a very rough estimate around half a gram of ingested cyanide is enough to kill a 160
pound adult.
Obviously depending on the person the lethal dosage could be a little more or a little
less, but either way this is not a lot of cyanide when compared to the size of an adult
human.
If a lethal dose is inhaled or ingested, the poison immediately starts shutting down the
energy generators of the body, and death occurs within minutes or even seconds.
As would be expected when energy production in the body stops, the symptoms of cyanide
poisoning include: dizziness, headaches, nausea, and weakness.
Eventually these symptoms develop into loss of consciousness, low blood pressure, slow
heart rate, and respiratory failure.
At this point the next step is death.
However, if caught early enough some people do survive cyanide poisoning.
Unfortunately, the lasting side effects of the poison can be the development of Parkinson's
disease, loss of muscle control, blindness, and other neurological disorders.
Basically if poisoned by cyanide, the end result is never pleasant.
You may be wondering what to do in the precious moments after you realize you’ve been poisoned
by cyanide.
What steps can you take to save your life?
The first thing to do is get out of whatever area the source of the cyanide is coming from.
Now if you have ingested the cyanide, or some nefarious assassin has poisoned you, this
is impossible to do.
But if you notice you’re being exposed to cyanide, you need to immediately leave the
area.
In its gaseous form cyanide rises, so if you are in a room you should get as close to the
floor as possible and leave any enclosed space that might have cyanide in the air.
Once out of the immediate area you need to get naked.
That’s right, you should remove all clothing that could have been contaminated by the cyanide
because it could still enter your body through your skin.
Once the clothing has been removed it should be disposed of using safety equipment.
After you have left the area containing cyanide, and removed your clothing, you should wash
every part of your body thoroughly with soap and water.
If you believe you’ve ingested the cyanide you need to stop it from being absorbed by
your gastrointestinal tract as soon as possible.
Medical personnel will most likely give you activated charcoal, which will bind to the
cyanide and slow the absorption process.
Once all immediate danger is taken care of you’ll be given a cyanide antidote.
This will most likely contain amyl nitrite, sodium nitrate, and sodium thiosulfate.
All of these chemicals have a stronger attraction for cyanide than the binding site of oxygen
in the mitochondria.
Therefore, they bind to the cyanide before it can attach itself to the oxygen binding
protein that your mitochondria use to generate energy.
Another chemical that is used to neutralize the cyanide is cobalt.
Once the cyanide is bound to one of these antidote chemicals it is excreted from the
body in your urine.
So it’s clear that death by cyanide would be a bad way to go.
Cyanide has been used throughout history to kill enemies and commit atrocities.
The use of cyanide as a weapon dates all the way back to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.
Napoleon III had his troops dip their bayonets in cyanide, so that when it pierced the skin
of an enemy they would be poisoned.
Cyanide was even used as a poison as far back as the Roman Empire.
Emperor Nero would give his enemies cherry laurel water that contained cyanide.
Cyanide was used in both world wars as well.
In World War I it was used by French and Austrian troops as poison gas during trench warfare.
In World War II Nazi Germany used cyanide in their concentration camps.
The deadly gas was known as Zyklon B and killed millions of people during the war.
There are also reports of cyanide being used in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980’s where
hydrogen cyanide gas was used to kill Kurdish people in Northern Iraq.
Cyanide has been used by all sorts of deranged people for committing atrocities.
In 1978 Reverend Jim Jones convinced over 900 people to drink punch laced with cyanide
in what became known as the Jonestown Massacre.
The leader of the cult died by a gunshot wound to the head instead of from the poison, but
the cyanide was just as deadly as the bullet.
Cyanide is also an ongoing threat that has been employed by terrorist organizations to
wreak havoc around the world.
In 1982 a series of deaths due to cyanide poisoning occurred in Chicago.
Someone had tampered with Tylenol bottles and replaced the medication in the capsules
with potassium cyanide.
Seven people died from the cyanide laced capsules during The Chicago Tylenol Murders.
The authorities never charged or convicted a suspect in the poisonings.
Another example of cyanide related terrorism happened following the sarin gas attack by
Aum Shinrikyo in the Japanese subway system in 1995.
The organization planned on committing another act of terrorism using cyanide this time.
They placed an agent containing cyanide in the bathrooms of the subway system.
It was estimated that if released there would have been enough cyanide gas to kill 10,000
people.
Clearly cyanide is deadly and has been used for terrible purposes.
But this brings us back to the fact that it is naturally occurring in foods that we eat.
Most people know that almonds contain the poison, yet we don’t hear about cyanide
related deaths due to almond consumption.
So how many almonds do you have to eat before they become poisonous?
The answer might be less than you think.
There are two main varieties of almonds.
There are sweet almonds, which most of us enjoy eating, and bitter almonds, which are
not consumed as often.
A 160 pound person would need to eat around 50 ounces of sweet almonds in order to be
killed by the amount of cyanide that is contained within each one.
This means someone would have to consume just over 1,100 almonds in a single sitting in
order to ingest enough cyanide to kill them.
The person would also have to refrain from urinating during this time so that the cyanide
would stay in their system.
Therefore, death by cyanide from eating sweet almonds is very unlikely.
But what about bitter almonds?
This is where things become a little more surprising.
Bitter almonds contain about 50 times more cyanide than sweet almonds.
This means that around 50 bitter almonds would contain enough cyanide to kill you.
Bitter almonds are not eaten often, because as their name suggests, they are bitter.
But if someone had a craving for them, and ate 50 kernels of the cyanide-containing nut,
it is likely they would die from cyanide poisoning.
Cyanide is a deadly chemical.
It is dangerous because it is highly toxic in small amounts.
It is practically odorless when in its gaseous form, and can also poison you from being ingested
or through your skin.
Cyanide disrupts the energy making process done by the mitochondria in your cells.
This causes you to die from a lack of energy that is needed by your vital organs.
Just make sure next time you eat a bag of almonds that they are sweet instead of bitter.
Now check out “Most Deadly Elements On Earth.”
Or watch “Weapons Even The Military Made Illegal.”