Does the body not clear drugs like caffeine at a constant rate? If you drink less caffeine does the body clear it less quickly? Or am I not understanding it? Caffeine half life is about 5 hours (via Google), so regardless of if I drink 100mg or 900mg of caffeine, half (50mg or 450mg) will be left in my body 5 hours later? That seems like a pretty drastic difference in the rate of clearance.
In: 509
Rate of drug clearance is measured in half life because the mechanism of clearance differs from drug to drug.
To explain in simple terms: Imagine the drug is a meal. And the clearance process(enzymes) are people with different favorite meal choice. Depending on the volume, type, and variety of meal (drug) on the table and the number (age, race, sex, etc) of the people (enzymes) having access to eat, the speed/clearance would differ.
Hence to make it easier to compare the clearance for drugs among a population, it’s easier to use half life than to use the time for total clearance.
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