Activated Charcoal

• Description
• How Activated Charcoal Works
• How Activated Charcoal Is Given
• When Not to Use Activated Charcoal
• Emergency Home Care
• Synonyms and Keywords
• References
• Authors and Editors

Description

It was 1831. In front of his distinguished colleagues at the French Academy of Medicine, Professor Touery drank a lethal dose of strychnine and lived to tell the tale. He had combined the deadly poison with activated charcoal.
That's how powerful activated charcoal is as an emergency decontaminant in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract (which includes the stomach and intestines). Activated charcoal is considered to be the most effective single agent available. It is used after a person swallows or absorbs almost any toxic drug or chemical.

• Activated charcoal is estimated to reduce up to 60% of poisonous substances being absorbed.

• It works by adsorbing (soaking up) chemicals, thus reducing their toxicity (poisonous nature), through the entire length of the GI tract (stomach and small and large intestines).

• Activated charcoal itself is a fine, black powder that is odorless, tasteless, and nontoxic.

• Activated charcoal is often given after gastric lavage—the technique often called the stomach pump. Gastric lavage is only effective immediately after swallowing a toxic substance (within about one-half hour) and does not reach beyond the stomach as activated charcoal does.