Today we're going to discuss something called methylene blue. Now I haven't done a video on this ever simply because it's not a natural remedy. It's actually a synthetic drug, but it is sold over the counter and it's been around for a very long time and it has some fascinating properties that I think you need to know about. Now it was discovered in 1876, if I'm not mistaken, and it was the first fully synthetic drug in medicine.
It was used as one of the first antibiotics. It was used as one of the first antipsychotic drugs. In 1891, it was used for malaria.
In fact, nowadays, even the emergency room doctors have it ready if someone has either cyanide poisoning or carbon monoxide poisoning. And so it is a compound that creates some very interesting effects. At lower doses, it can act as an antioxidant. I'm talking about the dose of 0.5 milligrams to...
four milligrams per kilogram weight. So for example, I weigh 185 pounds. That's roughly around 84 kilograms.
So if you do the math, I would need per day roughly on the low end about 42 drops because it comes in liquid. And in one drop, you have 0.5 milligrams. So if I were going to take it, I would take like 10 drops in some water four times a day. And if you're going to try this remedy, I would definitely make sure you get the USP, pharmaceutical grade, at 1% solution, which will give you about 0.5 milligrams per drop. So what type of conditions would methylene blue potentially help someone with?
Well, septic shock, especially if the blood pressure has dropped significantly. Anaphylaxis, which is anaphylactic shock, a very severe allergy reaction. If someone had a virus because it has very potent antiviral properties. It's good for brain fog, memory loss.
It's been studied to help people with depression, anti-candida properties as well. It also apparently is really effective in tissues that demand high amounts of oxygen, which I'm going to explain in a little bit why, like neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's. It's even good for things like gout because it can help break down uric acid. In low doses, it acts as an antioxidant as well as an anti-inflammatory. So typically anything that involves mitochondrial dysfunction can benefit from methylene blue.
So what I want to explain is how it actually works. What is it doing in the body? This is very interesting. So what it does in the body, it acts as an artificial electron recycler.
Now, let me kind of explain this. Let's envision you have a battery, right? And batteries are filled with these electrons that are stored, right?
And so you need these electrons to generate energy. And you also have electrons going on in your body as well, in the mitochondria. In fact, your body converts food into electrons stored in the ATP molecule for energy.
And so in our mitochondria, we have a lot of electron transfer exchange going on. Methylene blue apparently has the ability to remove or add electrons depending on what part of the body needs them or doesn't need them. So it seems to help correct this shuffling around of electrons, which medically has this term called redox cycling. So this is one of the reasons why this could give someone with fatigue more energy.
Now, since we're talking about the mitochondria and this is the heart of your metabolism, in the conversion from food into energy, Oxygen is also involved. So methylene blue helps the mitochondria absorb and transport oxygen. It actually improves the way the body uses oxygen. And so you can imagine all the different problems that this could potentially help someone with. Now, there is some contraindications.
If someone is taking an SSRI, which for depression, for example, you wouldn't want to take this as the potential side effect of increasing too much serotonin. And of course, before taking something like this, check with your doctor just to make sure there's no contraindications. But I wanted to put this at least on your radar so you can understand a little bit more and you can maybe buy a book and read up on it.
But I think it could potentially help a lot of people with certain problems related to this oxygen and electron transfer issue. inside the mitochondria. Now, since we're on the topic of this mitochondrial dysfunction, if you haven't seen this video, you might want to check it out.