Preventive Medicine

What’s The To Do About Methylene Blue?

by Dr. Barry

Rather than remonstrate and castigate you about your New Year’s resolution or lack thereof I am writing about something completely different to begin the new year. I’m not sure how it caught my attention but multiple different sources lead me to check out Methylene Blue. This very interesting compound has been around for over one hundred years but remains medically relevant today.

Of course this is for informational use only and you would be crazy to try anything without the express agreement of your personal healthcare provider. In particular if you have a genetic condition called G6PD deficiency or are taking an antidepressant you should avoid this compound.

Methylene Blue (MB) or methylthioninium chloride (quite a mouthful...try saying that three times fast) is a dye and drug that was first discovered in 1876 by Heinrich Caro and used to stain fabrics including blue jeans. It is a powerful competitive inhibitor of monoamine oxidase activity, especially of MAO-A which is responsible for the breakdown of serotonin. Hence the warning above.

Aside from its start as a fabric dye it quickly gained use in many other situations. It’s used to disinfect fish tanks whilst the fish are still swimming in the tank. It is a dye used in some surgeries to differentiate tissues. It is a dye used in staining some microscope slides. It is a tricyclic phenothiazine, approved by the FDA and EMA for the treatment of methemoglobinemia and malaria. Its daughter compounds are chloroquine which is used to treat malaria and hydroxychloroquine which is used as an immunosuppressant in people with certain medical conditions like lupus.

It is also used to inactivate viruses in blood products for transfusion, in the presence of UV light and has been used for this reason since 1991.

Methylene blue has antiviral, antiparasitic and antibacterial activity and was previously used to treat recurrent bladder infections. Did I mention that methylene blue may be the most effective treatment for cyanide poisoning and is used along with hyperbaric oxygen for carbon dioxide poisoning. It appears to

be a direct electron donor in multiple sites in the electron transport chain that the mitochondria use to make energy. Cyanide blocks one of the multiple sites and Methylene Blue overcomes that blockage. That’s how I was introduced to it...based on its effects at the cellular level at sites like cytochrome C oxidase which is further along on the electron transport chain. It appears to reenergize cells that are having trouble with these chains and there are many reasons these chains get into trouble primarily due to the processed foods in your diet and other poisons ingested knowingly or unknowingly. It has the interesting side effect of turning your urine green.

Recently Methylene Blue has been in the news as a possible med to help with covid long haul symptoms. It certainly looks like something to try that has a very low risk profile, especially at the low doses suggested for this in the literature. This drug has an interesting metabolic pattern...low doses do one thing and higher doses do the opposite...so like in much of medicine..more is not necessarily better. For some general information check out articles like this one in the National Library of Medicine PMC3087269. Don’t just start buying this stuff off the internet without doing some real research because unless its pharmaceutical grade it may very likely contain toxic metals which are no problem when you are dying jeans or staining slides but a real problem for you.

Again, this column is not intended as medical advice; it’s intended to open conversations about health care and different options and opinions that you are not getting elsewhere. Here’s wishing you a Healthy and Happy New Year in 2023 and beyond.