How come you can build up tolerance to toxins, like snake’s, but you can’t build up a tolerance to others, like cyanide?

Question

How come you can build up tolerance to toxins, like snake’s, but you can’t build up a tolerance to others, like cyanide?

In: 106

Answer 1

Mostly, it depends on whether your immune system can detect and attack it.

Snake venom is mostly amino acids that your immune system can deal with. Prior exposure will result in antibodies that aid in a quicker immune response, reducing the damage the venom causes. As with anything solved with an immune response, it still takes *some* time and the quantity of poison can do damage before the immune system removes it.

Cyanide is a simpler molecule that your immune system cannot handle and needs to be filtered by the liver. Prior exposure does not help this filtering process, and, if anything, will slow processing due to prior liver damage.