Episode #166: Methylene Blue with Dr. John Lieurance, ND, DC

Why You Should Listen

In this episode, you will learn about the potential applications of the "magic bullet" methylene blue.

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About My Guest

My guest for this episode is Dr. John Lieurance.  John Lieurance, ND, DC is a naturopath and chiropractic neurologist who has been in private practice for 27 years.  He directs Advanced Rejuvenation, a multi-disciplinary clinic, with a focus on alternative and regenerative medicine, naturopathic medicine, functional neurology functional cranial release, Lumomed, Lyme disease, mold illness, and many other neurological conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, degenerative neurological disease, and inner ear conditions.  He travels internationally teaching other doctors.  Dr. Lieurance founded UltimateCellularReset.com, a web based educational portal, which sends out weekly videos on health and wellness tools for overcoming disease and fostering longevity and vitality.  He has been featured in many podcasts and documentaries.  He is the author of the 5-star book Melatonin: Miracle Molecule available on Amazon and at MelatoninBook.com.

Key Takeaways

• What is the history of methylene blue in medicine?
• Can methylene blue be helpful in addressing vector-borne infections such as Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia?
• Does methylene blue have virucidal properties?
• How might methylene blue be helpful in chronic UTIs and interstitial cystitis?
• What effect of methylene blue on biofilms and the organisms within them?
• What role does methylene blue play in the electron transport chain?
• How might methylene blue be anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective?
• Might methylene blue have a role as a cognitive enhancer?
• What is the role of methylene blue in concussions and TBIs?
• Can methylene blue play a role in improving depression?
• Can methylene blue lead to detoxification reactions? Are binders and drainage support recommended?
• How might methylene blue support autophagy or the body's janitorial service?
• How might nano silver, nano gold, or red light therapy potentize the effects of methylene blue?
• Should ascorbic acid be taken with methylene blue?
• Should CoQ10 be avoided with methylene blue?
• Should methylene blue be used daily or pulsed?
• Can methylene blue be used with psychedelic interventions?

Connect With My Guest

http://UltimateCellularReset.com

Related Resources

eBook: Methylene Blue: Magic Bullet: The Ultimate Supplement for Mitochondrial Support!
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Functional Cranial Release

Dr. John's Photobiomodulation Setup

Interview Date

May 23, 2022

Transcript

Transcript Disclaimer: Transcripts are intended to provide optimized access to information contained in the podcast.  They are not a full replacement for the discussion.  Timestamps are provided to facilitate finding portions of the conversation.  Errors and omissions may be present as the transcript is not created by someone familiar with the topics being discussed.  Please Contact Me with any corrections.  

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:01] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts, empowering your better health. And now, here's Scott, your Better Health Guy.

The content of this show is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health related decisions with your own personal medical authority.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:35] SCOTT: Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode number 166 of the BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts series. Today's guest is Dr. John Lieurance. and the topic of the show is methylene blue. Dr. John Lieurance is a naturopath and chiropractic neurologist who's been in private practice for 27 years. He directs Advanced Rejuvenation a multi-disciplinary clinic with a focus on alternative and regenerative medicine, naturopathic medicine, functional neurology, Functional Cranial Release, Lumomed, Lyme disease, mold illness, and many other neurological conditions, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, degenerative neurological disease, and inner ear conditions.

He travels internationally teaching other doctors. Dr. Lieurance founded UltimateCellularReset.com, a web-based educational portal, which sends out weekly videos on health and wellness tools for overcoming disease and fostering longevity and vitality. He has been featured in many podcasts and documentaries. He is the author of the five-star book Melatonin Miracle Molecule available on Amazon and at MelatoninBook.com.

And now, my interview with Dr. John Lieurance.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:53] SCOTT: Dr. John Lieurance was a prior guest on episode 151, where we talked about the Melatonin Miracle. I highly recommend you check that conversation out. My personal drug of choice, melatonin. Today, we're going to talk about the magic bullet, also known as methylene blue. I love the alliteration there, methylene blue, magic bullet. Welcome back to the show, Dr. John.

[00:02:15] DR. JOHN: Thanks, Scott. It's great to be here. I’m proud to say that the book [Melatonin] Miracle Molecule made best seller on Amazon. We're getting some great responses pouring in from people that have read that book.

[00:02:30] SCOTT: Yeah, that's awesome. I saw it's a five-star review on Amazon as well. Very, very cool. Fantastic information. Methylene blue is on the WHO list of essential medicines. Talk to us about what is methylene blue. What's its history? Where did it come from? And what is it conventionally used for?

[00:02:50] DR. JOHN: Well, it was originally invented as a dye, an industrial dye, in 1876 actually. And it's considered a thiazine. That's the family. In fact, if you've heard of hydroxychloroquine, there's a whole family of drugs that were derived from the parent molecule of methylene blue. None of which I think are quite as fascinating as methylene blue. Nothing really does what methylene blue does, which we're going to dive into.

But, yeah, it was invented as a dye. And what they were doing is they were dyeing tissues and cells, right? Because it's a great dye for that. And what they found is that there was a concentration of the dye occurring in more metabolically sensitive tissues. And what that means is that these tissues have more mitochondria. There's an affinity of methylene blue to go to the mitochondria, and particularly nerves.

And so, there was a process where they were staining the parasite that carries malaria, and what they noticed is that it was killing the parasite. And so, that's when the power of methylene blue as a medicine was first discovered. It was the primary cure for malaria for many, many years. But then, of course, antibiotics came on the market, right?

The way medicine works is when there's new drugs, it becomes sexy, right? And so, then you hire pretty girls to go out there and market it, and you run commercials, blah blah blah. And so, people get a little sidetracked. And so, methylene blue, unfortunately, has taken a back seat because it's been forgotten about. And now, it seems to be getting a lot more press. And people are more hungry for real answers to their health. And the story of methylene blue is really coming to surface.

But, yeah, its history is interesting. It is a dye. It's brilliantly blue. And when you look at the molecule itself, it is beautiful and like completely symmetrical. And I’m a fairly spiritual person. And I can't help but look at this molecule as something that's just completely divine. And it's called the magic bullet, right?

There's a doctor, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, right? If you've heard of Ehrlichia, which is the co-infection with Lyme. That was named after him. And so, he was looking at a molecule that had profound healing abilities in the body, but yet left the body completely unharmed. And he was referring to methylene blue. The word magic bullet, or the term, was actually coined due to people being impressed with methylene blue.

[00:05:30] SCOTT: Yeah, and it's interesting, because we don't hear a lot about it or at least didn't hear a lot about it until recently. I would say, in conventional medicine, if I went to an emergency room and I had carbon monoxide poisoning, or cyanide, or something, aren't they going to then reach for methylene blue as a potential solution for those conditions?

[00:05:49] DR. JOHN: Yeah, it's the only cure for some of these conditions where there's like extreme hypoxia. What methylene blue does is it acts as an electron donor. And so, oxygen is normally the electron donor. If we think about our ability to make energy, it happens in the mitochondria. And you have oxygen and glucose that are able to create ATP. And so, it goes through what's called the electron transport chain. And so, that's basically the process of moving electrons. And that's what the mitochondria's job is, is to move electrons.

And in the process of moving electrons, it's what's called exothermic. It produces heat that the body then uses to produce ATP, which is the currency of energy in the cell. And so, oxygen is the main donor of electrons. But when you get methylene blue enter the mitochondria, which methylene blue basically really wants to go into that mitochondria, it gets in there and it starts to donate electrons independent from oxygen. For people that are athletes, or endurance athletes, or they like to do athletic activities, we're finding that a lot of these people have a lot more stamina and energy.

I work with a lot of UFC fighters. In fact, I was in Vegas working with Dana White, who is the CEO and one of the founders. And so, they invited me down to the Performance Institute to do this cranial. We were kind of talking about this before we started uh taping. But this endonasal treatment that I do. And so, there's a couple of these fighters that we got started with methylene blue, and it's almost an advantage beyond. Because they can be in their choke maneuver, but they're still getting energy because they have the methylene blue to kind of move and donate those electrons.

But what's really fascinating, Scott, is that in addition to methylene blue being an oxidant providing electrons, it actually acts as an antioxidant as well. And it kind of like up regulates like your Nrf2 pathways and all these antioxidant pathways. And it's not such that it activates it in the short term, but it activates it in a way that triggers your body to adapt to it over a few days after taking it and after being exposed to the stressor. This is really profound. I mean, again, there's nothing that science has come up with as far as a synthetic molecule that even comes close to what this molecule can do.

[00:08:30] SCOTT: Lots of people think of it as something you put in your aquarium. What's the reason that we use it in that context? Is it to make the water blue? Is it because it keeps some organisms out of the water that it provides some oxygen or some nutrient to the fish? Why do we think of it as an aquarium material?

[00:08:47] DR. JOHN: It's antimicrobial. And so, in addition to adding it to aquarium water to keep it sterile for the fish, it also is used for blood. Anytime anybody gets a blood transfusion, that blood has been injected with methylene blue and exposed to red light, which we should kind of dive into as well, is the common red light. And methylene blue is pretty incredible. But they do that to sterilize the blood. And so, anybody getting a transfusion can actually get a little bit of methylene blue with that transfusion because it makes it a lot safer. It kills AIDS and any other type of infection that the donor might have had.

[00:09:28] SCOTT: In the community of people that listen to my podcast, lots of them dealing with Lyme disease. Methylene blue has been discussed over the past several years based on some research in the bartonella arena by Dr. Ying Zhang. And so, I'm wondering why we're seeing this resurgence of its use in complex chronic illness. Is it because of some of the research that's happening? And why are we not seeing even more use at this point?

[00:09:53] DR. JOHN: Well, when you look at any compounds, I mean, for instance, melatonin. I mean, people weren't really talking about melatonin until I started to really get out there and promote, especially the higher doses. It was kind of this underground thing that we were doing as alternative doctors. And you don't have the financial reason to kind of chase and promote certain substances. The patents run out of them. And so, you'll have things like methylene blue and melatonin, and there's a whole family of other things that are really powerful medicines that just don't get talked about.

And the two top ones I would say would be melatonin and methylene blue. And that's why I love talking about these things, because it's something a lot of people haven't heard about. They're not crazy expensive. And they can be profoundly healing.

And you had mentioned Lyme disease and mold. I mean, I’ve got a – If you go back and listen to our first podcast, you and I share a very common story. I listened to an interview you did a couple days ago actually, and it was fantastic, and it just sounded exactly like my journey as well. We got sick, and we figured it out. And now we're helping other people kind of overcome it.

It's been shown, methylene blue, actually directly having a positive effect on Lyme in its stage. And so, you have this initial stage with the infection, right? And then the chronic stage, which is what most people are in, antibiotics just don't work. We stopped using antibiotics years ago, because people would feel better temporarily. But then it was very destructive on the system. And so, we started looking at other ways to mitigate that and much more successfully.

And so, methylene blue has been shown to actually work on that chronic Lyme, where it just gets so deeply rooted in the tissues. And it likes these poor oxygenated hypoxic areas like fibrocartilage, like your SI joints, and your sternoclavicular joints, and your labrums. And there's like the spine. It can really get very sore in the spine. And so, these are pockets that Lyme likes to hide in.

And I actually have found that doing local injections in some of those areas can be really helpful with like ozone or stem cells. Because we start to look at these patients and we start to think about pockets in the body. We're talking about areas that are kind of breeding grounds for the borrelia.

And so, going out – And you have the nasal passage that really is a pocket that needs to be addressed. And we do that with a 30-day sinus protocol. You have the jaw. And a lot of people have pockets and cavitations in the jaw that can harbor the bacteria. And then you have joints and tissues in the body. Looking at these things, shock wave therapy in the form of the soft wave device that we use, can be really powerful, because that sound goes in eight inches, and it's antimicrobial, and it can really clean up these pockets. And then we'll do some local injections. And so, that, in combination with something like methylene blue, can be really powerful. And in fact, they've actually done studies injecting methylene blue into the disk of chronic spine pain patients, and it's been miraculous.

[00:13:31] SCOTT: Yeah. And I probably should do a whole another podcast at some point on shockwave therapy. That was incredibly just amazing for me personally when I fell running down the stairs to the gym a few years ago and ended up with a frozen shoulder. And it's just incredible. Another tool that most people have never heard of.

Research in this arena with methylene blue looks at malaria. That's what it was originally known for. The combination then of methylene blue with other agents like some of the quinine medications, or chloroquine, or artemisinin that can be synergistic in dealing with the Lyme co-infection, babesia. Given that you do a lot of work in this realm with chronic Lyme, which is borrelia, and bartonella, which is a co-infection, babesia, which is a co-infection, what are you observing with those? Borrelia, we talked about. But what about bartonella and babesia? Are you seeing methylene blue having a positive effect with those co-infections as well?

[00:14:26] DR. JOHN: Well, it's a good question, Scott. And I like to focus on the most upstream aspect of health and healing. And it makes my job a little easier. And so, I’m looking at cellular energy? And that comes through the mitochondria. And so, I believe the body is a self-healing, self-regulating device. It's got the divine wisdom to heal itself. But it runs out of battery, right?

And so, I believe the body is a self-healing, self-regulating device. It's got the divine wisdom to heal itself, but it runs out of battery, right? And so, when we start to recharge that cellular energy, which is what methylene blue does, it's going to fuel the immune system. And then, of course, methylene blue has a lot of extra things that it does because it actually is antimicrobial.

And especially, one of the things that we're doing in the clinic, Scott, is we're actually running methylene blue IV. And then we're running intravenous laser. Methylene blue is activated – See, methylene blue has a really special effect on – In the mitochondria, when it's moving electrons, there's four basic proteins, right? And they're called complexes one through four. And complex VI is called the cytochrome c. And cytochrome meaning cell, and chrome meaning light. This is the fourth and most important step, where you then get energy.

And so, photons, just like electrons, they're units of energy. And so, a photon interacting with that fourth complex, can do the same thing that an electron can. And so, that's why light can really be activating to the methylene blue. They're very synergistic. And so, we use red light panels as well. And we have a little closet type of room where people will stand in there for about minutes after they do this IV as well.

We started to create some products called Lumetol Blue. And Lumetol Blue is basically suspension of methylene blue and palm oil. And it's easy to take. It doesn't turn your mouth all blue. And methylene blue needs to be activated by stomach acid.

A lot of times, we're looking at delivery, and we're trying to think about ways to get certain substances in the body without it being affected negatively by digestion and first pass through the liver. But methylene blue is one of those amazing compounds that actually does better with dissolving right in the stomach. And so, that's why we like this palm oil suspension, A, because people don't like their whole mouth looking blue so you look like some zombie that just ate brains. And then it dissolves perfectly in the stomach. A lot of people looking at these troches. I know there's some people selling sublingual types of delivery systems. I don't think that the dosage is enough with those. And we can talk dosage.

But Francisco Gonzalez-Lima, who I really look at is one of the foremost authorities on methylene blue. And he's done a lot of research and currently still does a lot of research. And he's worth anybody that really wants to dive even deeper into methylene blue, A, I have an e-book. And we'll put a link to it. But also, there's some great interviews with Francisco. But his comments were that he didn't feel that like the sublingual was a great way to go.

We have a suppository. And we also have the suspension. And so, your urine will actually turn blue or green. And in fact, when they gave it to soldiers, they demanded soldiers in the Pacific when they were in World War II, they had to take it, because it prevented catching malaria and it cures the malaria. They used to say like, "I’m so patriotic, I’m even peeing blue." But you should expect that, that the urine should turn blue.

And it's also an incredible mood uplifting compound. In fact, they've done huge clinical trials on humans showing that it can be a powerful antidepressant. And one of the reasons that it works that way is it mops up nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a substance that is a response to infection. It's a short-term adaptation response. It's not something you want high levels of chronically, because it kind of vasodilates and it increases circulation a little bit. But it's inflammatory. They found a direct correlation to mood and nitric oxide levels. Really, at the root of a lot of mood issues and depression is chronic infection.

[00:18:59] SCOTT: I want to come back to some of those things. But I want to talk a little bit more about the antimicrobial properties of methylene blue. I’ve read from your ebook and maybe some research that I had done as well that it can be helpful in dealing with Staph, with Klebsiella, with Candida as well, or Candida. I’m wondering, in this world of the virus or we're talking about the pandemic and COVID, do we think that methylene blue may have a virucidal property that could be helpful in COVID? And then what about a lot of these vital force-draining herpetic viruses, EBH, HHV-6, herpes zoster, those types of things? Do we think there's a role in the viral support realm?

[00:19:40] DR. JOHN: Absolutely. It's a very broad-spectrum antiviral. And I have a, friend he's an MD, and he's in the LA area, and he ran some clinical trials using methylene blue and intravenous laser in conjunction with silver, which we do as well. We add silver to our protocols. Because silver, and even gold, actually really enhance the photo activity of methylene blue. But anyway, the results were incredible with COVID. Two days, people were walking out like completely cured. And so, they went to the FDA expecting like, "Hey, we got we got the answer here." And the FDA said, "Well, that's Mexicans." And this is a small doctor. I mean, the guy just spent like his life savings doing this one study in Mexico. And they said, "You need to prove that it can do that with Caucasians and blah-blah-blah."

They've had their agenda the whole time. And a lot of us got kind of suckered into thinking that there was an opening for us to really contribute and support the whole effort when there really wasn't that opening. And I think melatonin, same thing happened. I mean, melatonin, there was a study in Canada that showed that 40 milligrams or more of melatonin prevented you catching COVID, like the transmission. And nothing has really shown effect with that.

And so, and it also works to mitigate it getting to a more serious level with melatonin. A lot of the better hospitals would use very high doses of melatonin. I think the combination of melatonin and methylene blue would be a huge advantage for our healthcare model. But, again, it's not patentable. There's no money in it for anybody. So nobody's really got a lot of incentive.

[00:21:33] SCOTT: And would you think Epstein-Barr virus – I personally feel like that's a bigger contributor to many of these long-term chronic illnesses than most people really stop and think about. I would say most of conventional medicine says, "Oh, that's just you know past immunity IgG. You don't need to worry about it." I don't think that that's generally true. Do you think that methylene blue could help with Epstein-Barr virus, for example, as well, and some of these viruses that lead to these chronic fatiguing conditions?

[00:22:02] DR. JOHN: Well, I think the evidence shows that it could work on just about any virus. And by upregulating your mitochondria and your energy, you're basically charging up your immune system, right? Your immune system has mitochondria.

Basically, for people to really get this, this is really what I’ve discovered, is that all stresses have one thing in common, which is they result in inflammation, cytokines, right? And what happens is the cytokines, when it exceeds a certain threshold, shuts down energy in the cell. Because the mitochondria, they don't like inflammation at all. They don't like these cytokines. So they basically completely shut down and say, "I’m not going to work anymore." And all the work has to happen in the cytosol, which is out of the mitochondria. And that's called the Warburg Effect, right? It's aerobic glycolysis. And you only get 10% of the energy with that.

All these infections, when they're chronic, there's so much inflammation associated with it. There's always this suppression of mitochondria. Then you shut down your immune system. We get Epstein-Barr when we're young. And then if we have a healthy immune system, it never sees the light of day. It's the depleted immune system, which is really the depletion of our mitochondrial function, which is really the excess of cytokines that's changing the way that the mitochondria are making energy. That's why we want to look all the way upstream and start looking at the root cause of most diseases is these stressors that are causing inflammation, which is usually infection or toxicity. We isolate those. We bring those down. And we start supplying things like melatonin and methylene blue. And we see some exciting things happen.

[00:23:54] SCOTT: You mentioned that it can turn the urine blue or green. Chronic UTIs, or urinary tract infections, interstitial cystitis, those are conditions that can be very challenging. Many times, people need repeated courses of antibiotics, biofilm breakers, other things to move those conditions forward, particularly the IC. I'm wondering if methylene blue could be a helpful therapeutic intervention in chronic UTIs and interstitial cystitis.

[00:24:23] DR. JOHN: This is a subject that I start to get really upset when I start thinking about how our society is being denied a better health care. And you look at antibiotics and how it came along, and basically, it took the place of what methylene blue was doing for malaria. And so, the same thing happened with chronic urinary tract infection.

When you take methylene blue, it concentrates in the urine. And so, it pretty much starves those microbes of oxygen. And so – And it can be taken every day. You can dose methylene blue on a daily basis safely. And antibiotics are destructive. They're destructive to our microbiome. And now there's all these antibiotic-resistant strains. There's a lot of problems with antibiotics, where you don't have that with methylene blue.

And I think that this needs to be something that our medical community needs to recognize and start bringing back, is for chronic urinary tract infections, this should be the gold standard treatment.

[00:25:30] SCOTT: Let's talk a little bit about biofilms. Is it that the methylene blue can stain a biofilm, which we know that it does? Or is it that the methylene blue actually has a therapeutic effect on those biofilms and potentially on the organisms within the biofilm community? We know that lots of chronic infections, we talked about some of these sequestered spaces in the body biofilms play a role. Do you think methylene blue has an effect on the organisms within the biofilms or the biofilm community itself?

[00:26:02] DR. JOHN: Yeah. Well, there's been at least one study that I read that shows that it reduces biofilm. It's a dissolver of biofilm. I also like to – I look at methylene blue as kind of like this magic bullet, right? So it's going to help in all these ways. But I’ll generally like to use like proteolytic enzymes as well. I’ll dose most of my patients with like nattokinase or like an EDTA with proteolytic enzymes once or twice a day on an empty stomach. And I think between methylene blue and some enzymes, I think you're going to be really covered with biofilm.

Dosing on methylene blue is interesting. The dose is between a half a milligram per kilogram to 4 milligrams per kilogram. And some of the studies have even gone up to 10 and 20 milligrams per kilogram with no side effects. The safety is very high with that. But what's interesting is you can go with the lower dose. And like you said, there can be some effect with neural protection. I think people that are subjected to head injuries, or toxins, or whatnot, or anybody looking to mitigate situations with degenerative neurologic disorder and maintain a healthy brain, a small dose of methylene blue, even like 20 milligrams a day or something like that. And the half-life is about 12.5 hours. It's about 13 hours. It's suggested to just dose it once a day, and that would be enough.

We will have people the antidepressant effects of methylene blue tend to be on the higher end. And we also see more of the antimicrobial effects with the higher dose. I typically go more in the lines of the one, one and a half milligrams per kilogram with a lot of my patients.

[00:27:59] SCOTT: In your book, you talk about methylene blue as an anti-inflammatory with neuroprotective properties that could be helpful in conditions like strokes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's. It seems that there's lots of potentially helpful mechanisms of methylene blue that could be helpful in lots of these chronic conditions. And so, I'm wondering, what's your observation been in terms of your patients with neurodegenerative diseases and their response to methylene blue?

[00:28:26] DR. JOHN: Yeah. As a chiropractic neurologist, I treat a lot of neurological cases, Parkinson's and a lot of vestibular disorders, people with Meniere's and so forth. Neurological cases are no stranger to me. When we started using methylene blue in the clinic, we started to see some really exciting changes with our patients. And I’ve seen some just dramatic changes with people right in front of my eyes with even one dose. Like with the the infusion that we do. It's called Luma Blue, is the protocol. And even taking it orally.

Actually, I had a really severe neuropathy patient that I put on it. And his neuropathy just completely cleared up. And he'd had it for about 20 years. There can be some real shocking results with methylene blue. But it's not necessarily like going to happen with everybody right away. Sometimes it takes a little bit more time.

But the evidence is really, really compelling. Because they've actually studied methylene blue with regards to the proteins that accumulate with all these degenerative neurologic disorders. And so, you have tau protein in the form of alpha-synuclein with Parkinson's. And you have beta-amyloid without Alzheimer's. And so, these neurofibrillary tangles and these proteins choke off the nerve.

And what they found is that methylene blue actually dissolves these proteins. And so, the problem with this research, though, is that they're just hyper-focused on that phenomenon, right? They're ignoring the metabolic situation. And they're just basically looking for the outcome of as much of the tau as they can dissolve.

But what happens is, a lot of these neurons, they collect so much tau that there's no recovering them. They're kind of overly doing it with their dosing schedule. And so, Francisco Gonzalez-Lima talks about this a bit with these colleagues that are running this research and how they're really missing the boat. And that happens in medicine quite a bit, where they're really hyper-focused on a phenomenon versus looking at the body as an organism and a whole.

I don't know if we're going to see anything much come out of that, because they're going in the wrong direction. But we certainly can see that there's a significant down-regulation of inflammation. In fact, it works on a similar pathway that melatonin does on something called an inflammasome. And this is activated in the microglial.

And so, when we get exposed to toxins or infections – Let's say that you have like a lot of Epstein-Barr and it's circulating in the brain. Well, the brain doesn't like that. And so, it's looking at these bacteria, or these viruses, or a heavy metal, or whatever, and it says, "We have to like encapsulate it to protect it from like activating more in the brain."

The microglial kind of like surrounds it and they become – I always think about them like a chihuahua with a bazooka, right? They're like these little cells. But when they get pissed off, they just start blowing everything away. And so, this is the problem, is once these microglial are activated, they just start to destroy all these neurons around them. And so, calming the microglial down is really, really important, especially with traumatic brain injuries. But also with all these people suffering from Lyme disease, and Epstein-Barr, and all the different co-infections. They've got this chronic neurological inflammation. And so, it's important to go in there and calm the microglial down.

And one of the other strategies is taking polyphenols, like fistetin and resveratrol and quercetin. And these really colorful plant extracts can also be really helpful to down-regulate neural inflammation in addition to the methylene blue. And even, melatonin works on the same pathway with the inflammasome.

[00:32:40] SCOTT: Yeah. And I think that's – And I know Datis Kharrazian does some work in that realm talking about the M1, M2 morphology of the microglial cells, and that contribution to neuroinflammation.

Let's just continue on then with cognition and brain. Many people have brain fog, cognitive issues, memory problems. How likely is it that methylene blue can really help with that tsunami of brain-related cognitive issues that people experience today? I heard someone refer to it as the cheapest cognitive enhancer. And so, in that realm, I'm wondering, does methylene blue have any specific role on neurotransmitters?

[00:33:21] DR. JOHN: You know, a direct relationship. It has an effect with acetylcholine. But from my understanding, it down regulates acetylcholine a bit, which would kind of be the opposite of what you would think with memory. But what they found in the research is that methylene blue seems to enhance memory quite a bit. And they've found that they've used ethylene blue in therapy with people with phobias.

And so, what happens is when we have a phobia, there's a neural network, right? There's a pathway that's being fired. And this creates that emotion. And so, when they look at people doing exposure therapy, you're trying to reorganize that, right? If you were afraid of spiders, say, you might like have a jar of spiders put in front of you and sit there and look at it for a period of time. And then what they found is that when they provide methylene blue, even one dose after it, it enhances something called memory consolidation.

And so, this memory consolidation is really critical for people with, I think, any type of spiritual psychological type of situations. It can really enhance just organizing those new thoughts and patterns. And it does that simply by just charging up the mitochondria so the brain has that boost of energy and it can perform that task much more efficiently.

[00:34:52] SCOTT: If we think then about people that have concussions or TBIs, traumatic brain injuries, do they need to take it immediately after the injury? Or can methylene blue still improve those conditions far later?

[00:35:06] DR. JOHN: Well, I think if anybody is expecting an injury, they should take it before, would be best. But it's also been shown in the research to be quite effective even after. But the sooner after, the better, right? If you wait a month, it may not be much of an effect.

But in strokes, actually, it can be quite effective. Any type of ischemic injury, heart attack, stroke, they don't use it like that in the hospitals, unfortunately. But it's quite effective, because it goes in there and it donates the electrons. It can really save a lot of neurons.

Some surgeons will use it in operations when they're doing heart transplants and so forth. But it's under-utilized, because it's so powerful in that fashion. Yeah, I think any athletes, football players, we talked about ultimate fighting, UFC, martial artists, hockey players, anybody that's doing anything where they're expecting any type of brain and concussive type of forces just absolutely should be looking at methylene blue. And I think anybody that's suffering from a chronic neurological infection, it makes a lot of sense.

[00:36:25] SCOTT: Let's talk a little more about methylene blue and depression, and then kind of building on that conversation around how it might help those with depression. Do we need to be concerned about people that are on antidepressants, like MAO inhibitors, or anything in that realm that might be a contraindication for methylene blue?

[00:36:45] DR. JOHN: This is another really interesting subject. The thymus gland is extremely metabolically active. And so, when they do a surgery where they remove the thymus gland, they will administer a large dose of methylene blue, which then they can see the thymus gland really clearly when they do the surgery. And so, what they found is when they do this thymus gland surgery, that the people – There was only five cases reported. And they were all on SSRIs. But the dosage that they were giving these surgical patients was very high, way higher than the therapeutic doses that we're talking about.

The FDA came out and just did a blanket contraindication to SSRIs. And it's been since rescinded by Mayo Clinic. In Canada, there's not that that label anymore. Only four used in that surgical situation. But in the United States, the FDA still has.

A lot of people looking at it might be a little bit timid to use it, especially if they're on SSRIs, when indeed it's probably – And I should say that you should definitely talk to your healthcare practitioner. Do not take any of what we're saying today as medical advice. This is just a conversation. You should be going with the advice of a practitioner with this. But from what I can see, it's not a problem.

And what really is a bummer is that there's so many doctors out there that are hesitant to use it with patients that are on antidepressants and they're depressed, when in actuality would be completely safe.

[00:38:31] SCOTT: If we think about methylene blue's impact on Nrf2, that's on improving detoxification efficiency, we think about the impact that it has on metabolism. I’m thinking then the body has more energy mitochondria working better. Potentially, then the body starts to work through this backlog of toxicants and toxins that it hasn't really had the energy to do anything about previously.

And so, I’m wondering, in cases like that where we're kind of thinking, "Oh, this person maybe in a cell-danger response," Dr. Bob Naviaux’s work, do we need to be cautious? Can we have a detox reaction? Can we have – I mean, technically, I guess you could also have a Herxheimer reaction. But could we have these scenarios where the body then starts detoxifying too quickly or too efficiently, and that then is an uncomfortable experience for the person using it potentially?

[00:39:26] DR. JOHN: To your point, listening to your interview a couple days ago, you were talking about drainage, and you were talking about binders, right? And so, this is one of the reasons that working with someone with experience can really help mitigate some of these things.

I would suggest people can start with a lower dose and work their way up. They might consider taking a binder. They might consider doing some – I use a lot of homeopathics as drainage remedies, drinking plenty of water, saunas. I mean, there's things that can be done that can help mitigate those. Because if you're trying to detox too quick, it's like you're stepping into like a pond and you're stirring up that mud, right? Instead of that clearing out, it's stirred up and it starts to recirculate, and then people start to have symptoms.

[00:40:21] SCOTT: What's your favorite homeopathic drainage? Pekana or DesBio, or what do you like?

[00:40:26] DR. JOHN: Well, I actually use a remedy called Drainage from Xymogen. That's the one. We do a Biomeridian stress testing in our clinic, right? We have a machine called ASYRA. And so, in the clinic, what we'll often do is we'll run like food allergy. We'll look for gut parasites. And we do some specialty tests. Then we can test the biocompatibility of something like artemisia, or coptis, or whatever antimicrobial we're looking at and make sure it's more bio-compatible, right?

And so, in addition to that, then we're able to actually imprint the drainage remedy with those signatures. And I know it sounds kind of futuristic and Star Trek, and maybe it is. But it's quite an effective way to work on patients and get answers that are difficult to find and really dial in a different protocol.

[00:41:24] SCOTT: Yup. Huge fan of anything in the energy medicine realm, including a lot of those tools as well. Let's talk about autophagy, or this cellular cleansing process. What I think of as the janitorial service of our bodies or our cells that are really keeping us from storing these damaged cells over-time. I'm wondering if methylene blue has a systemic autophagy-promoting role or property. And then is there some value in combining methylene blue with fasting in order to really accelerate this cellular cleansing or autophagy?

[00:42:00] DR. JOHN: Ah, now we're getting into some exciting stuff here. Yes, methylene blue suppresses mTOR. And so, it activates autophagy. And so, I’m sure a lot of your listeners are pretty savvy with this, but we have this signaling where it's feast and famine. And so, when we're not eating, our body goes into a recycling and cleaning mechanism. And there's mitophagy as well, where we're cleaning out and recycling mitochondria, which is really important.

And so, mitophagy is a big deal. And that's why we use a lot of fasting in our protocols at the clinic. I created something called the Fast Track Fast. And methylene blue is a part of that. And so, we have three phases that I look at. Anybody looking to do fasting, if they're wanting to kind of like improve that situation, this would be my advice. They do something before the fast to improve their cellular energy, like a methylene blue. I like NAD. We use an NAD suppository that I think is really a fantastic way to get a similar dosage of NAD to an IV, but for pennies on the dollar, and convenience. You put a suppository in and it's delivering over a few hours.

After you have that kind of prep phase, we go into the fasting phase, where we want to accentuate the autophagy. We want things like senolytic polyphenols, like we talked about, pterostilbene from blueberries, and fisetin from strawberries. And so, we designed a product called Lucitol, which has all these polyphenols. And it's a product that I really designed for football players for head injuries. It down-regulates all that microglial activation. But when I started to deep dive into fasting, I was like, "Oh my gosh! This is perfect for accentuating that signaling of fasting."

Then during that fasting phase, I think methylene blue would be great to dose as well. And then, of course, one of the things a lot of people miss is after the fast, it's just as important to really upregulate mTOR. So you want – Unless you're dealing with cancer, you kind of want to forget that anyway, at least that that feeding. You don't necessarily want to do a ton of protein afterwards. Again, you should be working with a healthcare practitioner on something like that.

But, typically, for people doing fasting, say, for like Lyme or something like that, you want to really enhance your protein intake. Take some essential amino acids. Some leucine is a really good protein to take. Dietary, increase your protein. If you follow those three steps, you can really get a lot more out of the fast.

[00:44:53] SCOTT: You mentioned the senolytic senescent cells, or what some people call zombie cells. That is, as I understand over-time, a major contributor to aging, to decline in health. Is it then these polyphenols that you talked about along with methylene blue that's helping the body to also be on just autophagy or that cleansing process, but then those helping the body to be able to deal with the removal of those senescent cells or zombie cells? Correct?

[00:45:24] DR. JOHN: Yes. Senescent cells is a real thing. And we lose the machinery for us to isolate older cells, right? So our cells all have a lifespan. And once they get to a certain stage, they're like an old car, right? And so, I often will say imagine the city with a bunch of old cars, and we're going to have smog, right? We're going to be using a lot more gas, right? They're not as efficient. And that's basically what a senescent cell is. It's an old cell. And it's spewing a lot of toxins and inflammatory byproducts, oxidation. And it's consuming a lot of energy. And so, it's one of the causes of aging and a lot of diseases.

And they've done some really interesting studies where they've been able to enhance senescent cell in certain animal models and see like all these diseases start to appear. And when they minimize the senescent cells, they see some really dramatic turnaround in health.

And so, this whole fasting program is really – One of the reasons that it has these great health benefits is that it's cleaning up these senescent cells, these zombie cells.

[00:46:44] SCOTT: Let's come back to some of the synergistic things that you can do while you're using methylene blue. You mentioned nano silver, nano gold. Can I use a light panel at home? Do I need to be using something in your clinic? Can I benefit from using methylene blue with sunlight, for example? Let's talk about some of those things that increase the effect of methylene blue.

[00:47:08] DR. JOHN: Let's dive into that. Like we talked about the photon, as a unit of energy that the mitochondria can utilize. And so, there's a number of different wavelengths and colors of light, the full spectrum. And our skin is designed to protect us from the sun, basically. And so, very little penetrates through the skin. In fact, most, it doesn't get past the first millimeter.

However, red light and infrared light does. Not amazingly, but it penetrates the most out of anything. And that tends to be the spectrum. And in fact, it's 660 nanometers right about in red light tends to be the sweet spot for methylene blue. And so, there's a synergistic effect. And it's primarily through that fourth protein step in the mitochondria.

If you look at methylene blue's effect with all four complexes, it like upregulates complex one, two and three like a 110%. But it only up-regulates complex four by 70%. And so, when you go in and throw that red light in, it really bumps it up. And so, it just gets everything working on all eight cylinders.

Going out in the sun is a terrific idea. And especially if you pre-load with melatonin, you never get sunburned. It's like I used to just burn, and I can basically be out in the sun all day long. And I don't wear sunscreen anymore. I just gently tan. My skin – I mean, it's incredible.

We actually just launched MitoSkin, which is a melatonin-based skin cream, and something I’ve been beta testing. Yeah. Actually, it's got more than. It's got methylene blue. It's got – Have you heard of an antioxidant calledapocynin.

[00:49:10] SCOTT: I don't think so.

[00:49:12] DR. JOHN: Yeah. It's pretty amazing. We have it – There's something that we make called Breathe. We actually don't have it on the website. But it's basically apocynin and GHK copper peptide. And we'll have patients nebulize it, and it actually reverses fibrosis in the lungs. We have the GHK copper peptide in the cream as well, and resveratrol, melatonin, methylene blue. And I’ve been beta testing it for about a year now. And it's pretty dramatic. And in taking the melatonin orally, really – There's a whole chapter I have in my book on skin. But I look like I’m 10 years younger. It's really incredible.

[00:49:54] SCOTT: Let's come back to the nano gold, the nano silver. What are those doing in a methylene blue protocol? I know in your ebook, you mentioned Argentyn 23, that that was something you could use on days that methylene blue was being used. Is that for the same purpose? Or is that also to have the additional synergy of something that is also antimicrobial?

[00:50:16] DR. JOHN: Well, gold and silver enhance the photodynamic aspect of methylene blue in particular. Silver can enhance carrying methylene blue into the mitochondria a bit. But they work synergistically to kind of capture that light.

Especially, if someone's going to be using red light therapy or going out in the sun, they could take a swig of something like Argentyn. Or they could take another type of silver that they like. And in the clinic, we'll run the silver IV, intravenous, and then we'll run the methylene blue. And there seems to be a real synergy with that. It works together. It's like a entourage. Like one plus one equals four, right? It's like you have like an awesome thing. Silver is just amazing.

I did an interview with Seth, who owns Sovereign Silver. And he makes Argentyn. He's actually just right down the road for me. And we did an interview on my website, ultimatecellularreset.com, if anybody wants to go and watch that. But deep dive into silver.

[00:51:24] SCOTT: In the Lyme disease arena, with a medication called dapsone. In some cases, that can lead to a side effect that's called methemoglobinemia. And so, I’m wondering how methylene blue fits into that conversation. My understanding is it can be helpful in people that maybe have that condition that can result from the use of Dapsone and Lyme disease or other potential causes as well.

[00:51:48] DR. JOHN: Well, if you think about it, oxygen is very unstable, right? It wants to oxidize. And so, we're talking about the part of our blood that's carrying the oxygen. And so, the heme, if it gets oxidized, leads to this condition. And so, what methylene blue does, it actually prevents the heme from oxidizing. And so, it can reverse that condition quite rapidly.

[00:52:14] SCOTT: Let's talk about how the incorporation of oxygen into the body after methylene blue could be something that potentiates the effects of the methylene blue. If I, for example, was using hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or maybe exercise with oxygen therapy in a home environment, for example, could that boost or potentiate the potential benefits of methylene blue?

[00:52:39] DR. JOHN: Well, there's varying ideas about this out in the community. There's some people that really feel like you're enhancing this mitochondrial effect with the methylene blue and then you're going to put more oxygen in there to drive more energy. But all the research has not shown that there's a synergy with it.

The argument against it is that you're already driving this mechanism. And it's like you're adding something to it that it doesn't need that, right? We use CVAC in my clinic. It's cyclic variation and adaptive conditioning. It looks like this pod. And it's hypoxic, actually. But it's changing the pressure. And I like that quite a bit, because it's like working lymphatics and the glymphatics. And so, often after IVs, we'll put people in the CVAC pod.

I always say, you're either a swamp or a river, right? And what's healthier? A river. And so, when we get swampy, we get stagnant, right? I mean, we talked about drainage and the importance of drainage. And so, rebounding can be really helpful in that area as well. And just moving, exercise, is really important.

[00:53:57] SCOTT: It sounds like more so light as opposed to oxygen-based therapies in terms of potentiating the benefits of methylene blue based on your experience.

[00:54:07] DR. JOHN: Yes, yes. I wouldn't really be looking towards like hyperbaric oxygen or EWOT to really enhance it. I think that you should probably look at off days to do those as another route of healing and not a synergy between the two.

[00:54:27] SCOTT: There are differing thoughts about the use of ascorbic acid and methylene blue as well. Some people talk about taking methylene blue with ascorbic acid or vitamin C to create a reduced form that could increase bioabsorption, could minimize discoloration of the urine. Do you think that that's necessary, helpful, not appropriate? What are your thoughts on methylene blue and ascorbic acid?

[00:54:52] DR. JOHN: Yeah. There's a reduced form of methylene blue called leucomethylene blue. And it's like leukocyte. It's like a white blood cell. In the reduced form, methylene blue is clear. And so, you don't want to do that with all the methylene blue, some of it. And it tends to enhance its absorption. Taking a little bit of ascorbic acid at the same time as taking some methylene blue seems to be a smart way to do it.

[00:55:22] SCOTT: Let's talk a little bit about safe use of methylene blue. How people potentially can acquire these tools? Should they be using only pharmaceutical-grade materials? What are your thoughts on getting methylene blue? But then also some of the other forms that it comes in? And so, you mentioned the products that you have that you can take orally that it also needs to – Or is improved by some of the stomach acid. I believe you also have a suppository as well. And I don't know if that's intended for normal suppository use. Or if that's intended for oral use. But talk to us a little bit about the different forms of methylene blue and how people potentially can get these in a safe way.

[00:56:03] DR. JOHN: Well, I’ve seen methylene blue in tinctures. Like you can drop it in your mouth. And of course, it turns your mouth blue, your teeth. And there's the sublinguals that you can find online. And again, the mouth turns blue. And it doesn't seem to have as much of absorption, because you want it to absorb primarily in the stomach and mix with the stomach acid.

Like we said, like I said, we have a suspension in palm oil. But as a suppository, it it's a nice slow absorption when you slowly – When you do a suppository, you're negating – It's like doing an IV. I mean, it's going right into the bloodstream. The whole conversation about ascorbic acid and absorption through stomach acid, I mean, it doesn't matter. It is going into the bloodstream. And so, we like that. And we like that slow delivery. Because when you do a suppository, you're going to have a slow bleed of that substance into the bloodstream over even like five to seven hours. And when you slowly release something and you expose cells to that substance over a long period of time, you're going to get much more absorption intracellularly, versus if you have an amount that is – Like if you take something orally, there's something called peak plasma.

Generally, when you take things orally, your peak plasma is like an hour. The cells have an hour to pull that nutrients in. And anybody that makes like black beans or something like that, if you soak the beans for hours, like the beans fill up with liquid, right? Imagine your cells are the same way. The real importance is getting these nutrients into the cells.

We like suppository delivery with a lot of different of our substances. Methylene blue is one of the things that is very convenient to take it orally. And it works really well. We're typically recommending our patients to do it that way.

[00:58:07] SCOTT: And my understanding is that the suppository that you create, that that also can be taken orally. Is that correct?

[00:58:14] DR. JOHN: Yes. Yeah. We have a 300-milligram suppository. We recommend people break that into quarters. And that would give about 75-milligrams. And again, before you would start this, you should get some guidance by someone. What a lot of people do is they break it into quarters. So you cut it into four pieces and then you just have that little piece that you can throw in the back of your throat and then drink it down.

We're working on creating like these little bars that are going to be a little bit easier. But right now, that seems to be working for a lot of our doctors that are using it with their patients.

[00:58:53] SCOTT: And my understanding is that the pharmaceutical-grade methylene blue is really critical. That some of the industrial-grade potentially could have some heavy metals and other things. I mean, this is not something that you want to just go find online somewhere and not be sure that you're getting pharmaceutical-grade, correct?

[00:59:11] DR. JOHN: Yeah. This is a good point. Methylene blue can be manufactured and contain a lot of toxins and heavy metals, a lot of impurities. Unfortunately, there's been a lot of animal studies that didn't show methylene blue so favorable because they were using industrial methylene blue. So these animals were getting poisoned, really.

In the United States, we have a pretty pure form. It's called USP. Europe has – Their purest form isn't as pure as the one here in the United States. It's better to source the purity here. And so, you don't want to get the stuff that you're going to clean your fish tank with and take that orally. Be very careful. And make sure that it's a pharmaceutical-grade methylene blue. Otherwise, you might be in a lot of trouble.

[01:00:06] SCOTT: And as Dr. John mentioned earlier, this is something you should talk with your doctor, your practitioner, or someone that really understands this before you start experimenting with these things. We definitely don't want people to be doing that.

You talked about the range of dosing earlier in our conversation. Is methylene blue generally something that we should be using every day? Should we pulse it a few days a week? How do we determine the best way to do that in terms of daily use versus pulsing?

[01:00:34] DR. JOHN: Well, I think it's going to vary from individual to individual. I personally take it just about every day. The safety record is very strong to support that that's something that can be done. I think that if somebody took some days off, I think that it builds up in the system. And so, I think that doing like a regime where you do five days a week could be really you know a good way to dose it.

I think that when you start getting into some higher doses that you might want to consider the pulsing a little bit more, versus the lower doses where you're more towards the half a milligram to one milligram per kilogram of body weight, you're very fine doing it every day. But when you start getting into that two or more milligrams per kilogram, you might want to take a couple of days off.

[01:01:28] SCOTT: And is it best if you're doing a certain amount like you just talked about? Is it best to split that up into multiple doses throughout the day, twice a day, three times a day?

[01:01:36] DR. JOHN: Well, you can. But I don't believe it's necessary. We've talked about the half-life is 12.5 hours. But a lot of the studies, it's once a day. And once the methylene blue gets into the mitochondria, it stays there for a while. Even though the half-life and it goes through the body, there's still methylene blue doing work in the body beyond that.

[01:02:00] SCOTT: When you have a patient that comes to you that's dealt with chronic Lyme disease, dealt with mold illness, like we both have, when would you think about introducing methylene blue? Is it something you would bring in very early in a protocol to start to give them that energy and metabolic vitality that they need to be able to mount an immune response and detoxify? Or would you have some things that would be prerequisites, like getting out of mold, dealing with some of the infections? Where does it come in in a broader, complex chronic illness type of protocol?

[01:02:35] DR. JOHN: Well, if I’m working with a patient, if like the patient's out of town or something like that, we're doing distance coaching with them, I’ll often order labs, right? And so, until the labs come in, we'll start like a basic protocol. And often, my three go-to's are I start them with a 30-day sinus protocol. Because just the importance of nasal hygiene really, really a big game changer I found with myself and a lot of patients. And then high-dose melatonin. And methylene blue. And so, that's kind of something that I’ve started utilizing right off the bat with most of my patients.

And one of the beautiful things about the methylene blue is, because it has such a nice mood-uplifting ability of it, and it enhances the brain, I think it just gets people a little bit more motivated to take care of themselves and to enroll themselves in a care plan and start to cognate some of the – Because some of these things that we're talking about are complicated. We're talking about autophagy senescent cells. And so, a lot of people listening to this, if you're suffering from neurological Lyme, some of these things are kind of hard to kind of sort through. And so, getting on some mitochondrial support can really boost you moving into some of these programs so that you can handle it more effectively. I think early on is a great time to start it.

[01:04:07] SCOTT: And would you say that you're more sensitive or ultra-sensitive patients do seem to tolerate methylene blue pretty well? Or do you find you really have to be cautious and do the slow and low and really introduce it in a very methodical careful way?

[01:04:24] DR. JOHN: It seems like there's maybe like of my population will get some side effects when they first start taking the methylene blue. The vast majority of people tolerate it really well and start feeling better right away. And so, when that starts to pop up, we'll back off a little bit and we'll start to concentrate a little bit more on some drainage strategies and some binders and then start to walk that dosage back up. And that seems to work really well.

[01:04:53] SCOTT: And what are some of those symptoms that people maybe have that you think of as side effects of methylene blue that kind of get you then to pull back? Are they more traditional detoxification reactions, like headaches, and muscle pain, and fatigue? Or are they other things that lead you to think about that?

[01:05:09] DR. JOHN: Yeah, exactly. It almost like there's an inflammatory response that the patient gets. And I think the body's like doing house cleaning. And so, it starts to clean out these toxins that are building up in the cells. You think about someone that's had a disease for a while, like Lime or mold, there's this accumulation of all these toxins in the cell. And then all of a sudden you throw in some energy and then the cell is like, "Oh my gosh! I need to do some house cleaning. I’ve been so messy." And so, it starts to throw out these toxins. And so, then the body has to deal with those toxins, and that can be an inflammatory response. That's kind of what we're seeing is, is like a Herxheimer reaction.

[01:05:53] SCOTT: Let's talk about then some of the medications or things that should be avoided. We talked about some of the antidepressants that maybe that's not as big of a consideration as it maybe was thought to be. That people certainly need to talk to their doctor, but it may not immediately mean that they can't explore some of these tools in the methylene blue realm. What about some of the other psychotropic type things people are doing, like ayahuasca, or psilocybin, for example? Are those contraindications for use of methylene blue?

[01:06:24] DR. JOHN: The argument is the same. Because if you look at psilocybin, or MDMA, LSD, those primarily work really on serotonin. And so, it's becoming extremely popular for people to microdose for neuroplasticity for enhanced brain function. Particularly LSD and psilocybin, open up these channels in the brain that are just dramatic where there's this enhanced learning with microdoses of those two psychedelic medicines.

And so, there's a little bit of talk out there that because they're working on the serotonergic pathways, that methylene blue might be avoided in those situations. Ayahuasca has some serotonin effect as well.

My beliefs, and again, I would not take this as gospel. This is just from my own experience in my own studies, is that it should be fine. And if somebody's going to do like, say, a heroic dose of like MDMA or ayahuasca, they might be okay with methylene blue. But I say, to air on the side of safety, that they probably should either do it with a healthcare practitioner's guidance or avoid it. But I definitely think that taking it the day before or the day after – Because there's really some amazing benefits that people can gain from these psychedelic experiences. They can have these profound mystical experiences, and they can start to uncover their unconscious and subconscious belief patterns and actually start to unpack them. Especially with something like MDMA, you're able to view some of these things with such empathy, and love, and compassion for both yourself and for other people that you might be thinking about. And then I think you throw in the methylene blue the day after, and you get that memory consolidation aspect, and that mitochondrial, and the neuro protection. I actually wrote a book called Neuro-Protection During Plant Medicine. And it's a whole ebook just on this subject. If anybody's interested in exploring that, we can put a link to that.

[01:08:47] SCOTT: Is methylene blue something that people should test for G6PD prior to using? Or is that not necessary?

[01:08:55] DR. JOHN: No. That's important one. Yeah, you want to pay attention to that. If you have that gene, it can be a real problem with methylene blue. That and pregnancy is kind of an interesting subject. Because I can find some research that demonstrates that it's safe. And then I can find some research that really shows that it might be dangerous for the fetus. I would recommend, unless it's an emergency, like if they have a real need to take it to survive like cyanide poisoning or something like that, then probably they should avoid it while they're pregnant.

[01:09:37] SCOTT: One of the comments that I got from a listener was that her biggest side effect of methylene blue was not being able to get the blue stain out of her toilet bowl. I guess if that's the worst thing that happens, that's pretty good.

I had a medical doctor on the show a while ago that suggested that tissue dyes, in general, are carcinogens. And that methylene blue could be a carcinogen. At least in rodents, there's some information to suggest that. Should we be concerned at all about the potential for methylene blue to lead to any type of cancer?

[01:10:14] DR. JOHN: This is one of those studies that I was referring to where they used an industrial methylene blue. There's research showing that methylene blue actually does the opposite. Cancer is a mitochondrial problem, right? If you stress the cell long enough and hard enough, that cytokine, that inflammation, for a long enough period of time, the cell is eventually going to turn cancer. And the way that that shows up is the Warburg Effect. That's what Otto Warburg discovered, is that that's what happens in cancer cells. It switches from making energy in the mitochondria to that aerobic glycolysis. And so, that whole process of cancer is based on the mitochondrial failure. Methylene blue, because it has such a powerful action in the mitochondria, I see it quite the opposite.

[01:11:07] SCOTT: I read that methylene blue can lead to a false reading on a pulse oximeter showing lower oxygen levels that could be relevant during this COVID era where many people are monitoring their oxygen levels using an oximeter. I'm wondering if you've seen that. Does methylene blue lead to lower levels of oxygen, or at least a reading in a pulse oximeter?

[01:11:30] DR. JOHN: It does. Yeah, it does. Because of the staining to the red blood cells. It augments the sensitivity. And so, anybody that has a situation where they are having to go to the hospital or whatnot, they should notify the healthcare practitioners that they are taking methylene blue and that might help avoid some confusion.

[01:11:56] SCOTT: Some people suggest that we should avoid Co10 while taking methylene blue. That it can make it less effective. Any observations were thought on that?

[01:12:05] DR. JOHN: Yeah. That is true CoQ10 is something that works within that electron transport chain, and it's supportive. And it's not necessary for people that are taking methylene blue. Again, this is the conversation you should have with your healthcare provider. I know a lot of people take CoQ10 for supporting cardiovascular and energy and such. But is something that will diminish the effectiveness of methylene blue according to the research.

[01:12:36] SCOTT: As we start wrapping up, I’m wondering if you can share a clinical case where methylene blue ended up being a significant intervention and moving someone forward that was really in the midst of a complex chronic illness?

[01:12:49] DR. JOHN: I have a physician from Clearwater. And so, we're about an hour south of Tampa Bay in Sarasota, Florida. And so, this doctor, Lyme disease, mold. I mean, he's our story. Real sick. And he didn't know what he had. And so, he came in. And we ran the right tests. And lo and behold, he had all the markers, biotoxin illness, and Lyme disease. And we'd started doing 10-pass ozone and another iv protocol we have called RejuvenOX, which is an ozone procedure as well. And he was getting better, right? But it was like it wasn't quite putting him over the top.

And we switched to methylene blue. And actually, the first patient we treated with methylene blue, the very first case, was similar, where he didn't respond to any of the ozone. And I got to tell you, it's not common that there's no response at all. That's a really tough case. It's hard to budge those cases. But I’ve seen it multiple times, where once we introduced the methylene blue, it was a complete turnaround. This doctor will come in. He comes in every couple of weeks and runs the Luma Blue protocol. But he will swear up and down, like this saved his life. I mean, he's like back to his old self.

[01:14:14] SCOTT: Wow! Excellent. I love that. Another technique that I’d love for you to talk about briefly that we may do a future podcast on, but I know you're really excited about this particular intervention called functional cranial release. I’ve mentioned to you before that I’ve done something similar years ago called neurocranial restructuring. I'm just wondering if you could share a little bit about functional cranial release and how it might be helpful in those dealing with complex chronic conditions.

[01:14:40] DR. JOHN: Yeah, sure. I grew up in Hawaii. Being a white person in Hawaii, they called us Haoles, right? And so, the Hawaiian, the local people like to – They're very physical. And so, you had to like be able to defend yourself. I got into a fight. And this was like right after high school. And I got my nose broken. I couldn't breathe through one nostril. And so, when I was in chiropractic school, I’d heard some people talking about this technique where it's a balloon that goes up in the nose. And I just immediately – Intuitively, I'm like, "I need that. That could really help me."

And so, fast forward, it was about a year after I graduated, I found a doctor in Miami. His name is Lew Arrandt. He's still practicing in Miami. If anybody's out there, they should definitely look him up, because he does some amazing work with endonasal balloons. But he was the first one to treat me. And this was 25 years ago. And it was so profound. I just had to learn everything I could about it.

I, actually, am at the end – Just the end of my last chapter in a book called It's All In Your Head. Basically, the cranium collapses, right? And this happens in industrial situations. The stresses that we face in modern industrial culture cause a stress and an inflammation, and we wound up breathing through our mouth. And the inflammation a lot of times shows up in the nasal passage. And so this mouth breathing activity causes the maxillary bones to collapse in and the palate to collapse. And so, that's why our teeth crowd.

When you look at Aborigines, they have these really wide palates. And that's the healthy state of the cranium. And so, the cranium makes a movement pattern called cranial rhythm that moves cerebral spinal fluid, and which is oxygen and neurotransmitters. And it's taking out the groceries and bringing – Bringing the groceries, taking out the garbage, right? It's that detox and circulation. And this gets interfered with by this restriction, and this connective tissue adhesions, and this collapse phenomenon of the skull. And so, these balloons basically reverse that and reduce some of those adhesions to the connective tissue.

And so, I’ve been using this technique along with something called functional neurology, which is it's a technique where you're doing – I mean, the exam is similar to what a neurologist would do typically. But when we're looking at the exam, we're looking at very fine aspects of these tests and the comparison from right to left. And it gets us thinking about what's not working, and what can work, and how we can create neuroplasticity to make some things work to establish balance in the nervous system. And this is something that's a big deal for a lot of chronic Lyme cases. Because when you have that neural inflammation, you start to shut down a lot of pathways, especially in the vestibular system. And there's something called the vestibular ocular reflex. If I turn my head to the right, my eyes are pushed to the left, right? And so, no matter where I move my head my eyes have an equal and opposite effect. And so, there's a communication between the inner ears, the eyes, and the neck, and the entire spine muscle.

And so, often, what I see with a lot of chronic patients as they come in, that whole process is not communicating properly. And so, it creates a lot of tension and what's called dystonia in a lot of the muscles. And so, this this all can be cleaned up with the right type of exercises.

Anybody that's interested in this type of work can look online and look for a functional chiropractic neurologist. And there's not a lot of us out there. But there's enough of us where a lot of major towns have a good doctor that can do this type of work for you.

[01:18:46] SCOTT: Is there a specific school that people would want to look for? For example, I’m familiar with George Gonzalez, and Quantum Neurology I think is his technique. Is there a particular type of functional neurology that you were trained under that people could be looking for?

[01:19:02] DR. JOHN: Well, the main group that I would really emphasize would be the Carrick Institute. Ted Carrick is the first physician to ever do a diplomate for chiropractors in neurology. And he's probably one of the smartest people I know. He's worked with NASA. He's got an office at Harvard. He's worked with some of the top athletes that we know about. But we don't hear about it because they're usually quiet about it. But some of your top athletes have been treated by. And I’ve actually watched it, because I’ve done a lot of what's called grand rounds, especially when he was up in Atlanta, associated with life college. But I would look for somebody that's certified through the Carrick Institute. That would be my suggestion.

[01:19:50] SCOTT: Excellent. And I know you do a ton to support your own health. I know that you really do all of the things that you talk about. But what are some of the key things that you do on a daily basis that are really supporting your own health?

[01:20:05] DR. JOHN: I have a cold plunge. And I like to get up and go into the jacuzzi first and kind of stretch out, and relax, do a couple breaths. And then I’ll go back and forth between that and the cold plunge. And then when I get out of the cold plunge, I’ll go right in front of my red light. Actually, this is where I usually stand and do it. But I’ve got – I’ll show you.

[01:20:32] SCOTT: Nice.

[01:20:34] DR. JOHN: Just hang on.

[01:20:35] SCOTT: Okay. Cool.

[01:20:38] DR. JOHN: Not plugged in. I have six panels behind me. And then I’ve got some in front of me here at a standing desk. It's an idea I got from Ben Greenfield when I was out there recording a podcast at his house. Yeah, you can get the red lights on a cart, and then you can stack the red lights in front of you if you get a standing desk and you can kind of work on your computer and get your red light therapy at the same time.

[01:21:02] SCOTT: Okay. You just gave me another idea. Because I have the Joovv, and I have the way to mount it similar to what you have there in the back. But I’ve actually not used it. And I do stand at a standing desk all day. Now I have another easy way to incorporate that.

[01:21:15] DR. JOHN: Yeah. Well, I’ll take some pictures of my setup and I’ll send them to you. And if you want to post it in the show notes so people can check it out.

[01:21:22] SCOTT: Sure. Nice.

[01:21:24] DR. JOHN: We sell panels as well, MitoLights. And so they're similar quality to Joovv, but less expensive.

Another thing that I found to be really effective for my physical fitness is I do slow exercise. And this is something that I’ve done for many years. It's a lot safer on your joints. And so, some people call it the super slow method. We used to own a super slow zone franchise here. It was associated with my clinic back over 10 years ago. But basically, you're doing slow repetitions. And it's about a three-second contraction, three-second extension. And you're going to go slowly smoothly. So there's no pause, right? You're going very smooth through that range of motion. And you want to go to complete failure. In about three minutes, you're basically a failure. You want about that type of weight.

And what I find is I can go to the gym and use the resistive machines. And I can do like four machines in less than 20 minutes. And it's an incredible workout. And so, what I found is that I’ll add the blood flow restriction training to that. And I found that to be amazing at keeping my joints safe and really maximally activating those muscles, where you get the metabolic enhancement, preserving the muscle tissue. And I think that that's a really good way to go.

[01:22:56] SCOTT: Excellent. Excellent. I want to remind people episode 151 that we talked – Dr. John and I talked about melatonin. We talked about how that could pair nicely with this conversation with methylene blue. I will put the link in the show notes to his book that he's coming out with now, the ebook that talks about methylene blue so people can learn more about that.

Just really appreciate all of the tools that you've put together, the wealth of knowledge that you are. How generous you are and sharing your time and helping to educate people. And so, thank you, Dr. John, so much for being here today to talk with all of us.

[01:23:30] DR. JOHN: Well, Scott, it's really my pleasure, and to hear those kind words from you. Because I don't know if I mentioned this in the last podcast, but I used to listen to your show when I was really sick. And it's been a source of inspiration and information for me even early on. Thank you for that as well.

[01:23:52] SCOTT: Thank you, Dr. John.

To learn more about today's guest, visit ultimatecellularreset.com. That's ultimatecellularreset.com. Ultimatecellularreset.com.

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The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.