Question: why is cyanide so poisenous

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  1. Short answer is that cyanide inhibits cytochrome C which is an integral part of the mitochondrial electron transport chain. But what does all that mean?
    In order to get energy out of glucose (the most important source of energy in your body) your cells do a series of relations that eventually liberate high energy electrons from the atoms in the glucose. In order to squeeze all the energy possible out of these reaction these high energy electrons are stepped down in energy bit by bit and that energy is captured by other molecules. One of the proteins that does this ‘stepping down’ is cytochrome C. By stopping cytochrome C doing this job you cannot harvest energy as efficiently and so it starts to die. As this happens all around the body all the cells begins to fail and die. Does that make sense? Let me know if you need anything clarified.

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  2. Great answer james

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Comments

  1. This is a question asked in the intro-video!

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