Dosing Determines the Poison

What do you need to survive?  

“Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.” – 16th century physician-alchemist, Paracelsus

Dosing determines the poison.  That’s a fundamental principle to toxicology.  You can have too much of a good thing.   We are exposed to arsenic every day.  Heck, low doses have been used to treat syphilis, food poisoning, cancer, insomnia, and even to wash your face.  But less than 1/8 teaspoon can be fatal to a healthy adult.

We have covered topics including water, pH, macromolecules (carbs, proteins, lipids) and cells so far in class. Some of the items we could list for survival included water, salt, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, oxygen, etc.   Choose an item.  Now think about what would happen if you have too much of it?  What would happen if you have too little of it?   Are there disorders or diseases where this occurs?  Are there environmental conditions where this occurs?  How do we compensate?

You will base your paper off of the survival item (element, molecule, compound, etc) that you chose, and talk about how Dosing Determines the Poison as it relates to the human body and it’s cells and processes.

Your paper must be a minimum of 500 words.  Papers need to be referenced and follow The  formatting guidelines.  For specific requirements, please refer to your  under the “Resources” heading within the “Get Started” module).

1. Please pay attention to citing sources correctly, both 

    and in Works Cited.  All information that is not common knowledge to 90% of the population needs an in-text citation.  Refer to the  or 

2. Do not directly quote information unless it is a statistic, or a statement made by a person, which is important to your point.  I want to see summarizations that show me you understand what you are talking about, not quotes.
3. Do not copy or model your paper on any video, web page, article or book.  Write your own paper, summarize info you find from sources and cite it correctly.