Transcription
Hey everybody, it's Dr. Sam Robbins. Today I'm going to talk about methylene blue and my personal experience with it with two years of experimenting. I'll break down the science, uh, the hype, and whether it might be worth it for you to use it or not use it. I'll quickly go over the benefits and the potential health warnings, and what's the best dose you should take or ones you should avoid, and also what form or or type of methylene blue you should not be taking.
First, what is methylene blue? If you guys are uh new to it, um it was discovered in 1876 as a textile dye. Yeah, it dyes everything pretty much blue and anything. Um, it's uh its first synthetic drug use was for malaria. Um, it's classified as a neutropic mitochondrial enhancer and antioxidant. Now, the mitochondrial part is something I'm going to really stick to a little bit later. And um it's also approved um for a rare blood condition. It's this long name. I'll put it on the screen. I can't even pronounce it. It's methemoglobinemia. And um also now it's being utilized or promoted a lot more for just cognitive and neuroprotective properties.
Um, I actually first found out about it like years and years and years ago, like maybe 20 years ago. And it's because my friend had fish tanks and uh he's basically he said that's what he used it for. They're used in aquariums um as an antifungal antiparasitic agent. So my I just remember my friend telling me how this stuff uh stains anything and everything you touch or it touches.
So basically, how does it work? How does methylene blue work? First of all, it's a mitochondrial booster and acts as an alternative electron carrier in the ETC, basically electron transport chain. Um, it helps support ATP production, basically more energy for your body, for your brain, you know, for all the muscles. ATP is super important. Um, it's a powerful antioxidant, reduces oxidative stress. It also enhances cytochrome C oxidase. It's an enzyme activity which is key for cellular respiration. It also crosses the blood brain barrier where a lot of uh supplements and drugs don't cross. However, uh that's doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. Maybe there's a reason the your brain doesn't want things to cross it. So that I I'm not always a big fan of that. And also improves memory consolidation at lower dosages.
Some potential benefits methylene blue. I know on YouTube or anyone they're going to list like a million improvements and benefits and it's going to cure all these things. It just the main things is it it's supposed to improve cognitive enhancement, basically improve memory, focus, and mental clarity. It helps increase energy levels um mainly because of the mitochondrial function, more cellular energy. Um, it's neuroprotection for your brain and early stages of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and that's shown in pre-clinical studies. That's one of the reasons I started taking it uh because I have a family history of both uh Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Um, it also helps improve um oxygen delivery. Um, it's used in emergencies to improve blood oxygen. And it's synergistic with other compounds, other neutropics such as CoQ10 and NAD+ and other neutropic ingredients.
Now, let's talk about some potential negatives and side effects. It does turn your urine and stool blue. Nothing negative, but for the first time I saw I'm like, "Oh something's wrong. Something's breaking my kidneys," but nothing to be worried about. Um, it stains. It stains everything. Your teeth, I got some on my skin once, turned blue like a smurf. Um, so you have to be really careful on how to do it. Um, how to use it and how to handle it. Um, it now this is the major warning is with drug interactions with um SSRI serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SNRIs, and MAO inhibitors. Risk mainly because of the risk of serotonin syndrome, and this is super important. I'll talk more detailed about it later, but basically have too much serotonin which can cause toxicity. Um, it is also toxic at higher dosages. The exact dose I don't know. Nobody really knows because it's not. But it becomes a prooxidant rather than antioxidant, and for some people can cause nausea and headaches as well. So nothing major. The major major problem is that serotonin syndrome, which I'll talk about later. Something that I ended up kind of dealing with.
Let's talk about the dosages. In clinical studies and in historical medical use states that the range is between 0.5 to 2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. 0.5 to 2 mg per kilogram of body weight. So if you're a 150 lb person, uh that's roughly anywhere between 15 to 60 milligrams, which I think is kind of high. I don't really agree with that dosage protocol based on a lot of empirical evidence that I've seen and heard from just regular people that are using it. And for healthy people, remember some of these dosages are done on people who are sick or unhealthy or need it, but the average person I don't think requires that high dose. I'll tell you what I use in a minute.
Now, the next important part is the form of methylene blue. Um, it does come in capsules or liquid, which I use the liquid. I'll tell you why in a minute. But it has to be USP pharmaceutical grade. Whether it's a liquid or capsules, USP pharmaceutical grade. Do not take those aquarium grade ones that my friend was using his fish tank. Those are just um have heavy metals and toxic impurities. Um, and some people actually dissolve it if they use a liquid with ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C, to help improve the absorption. Um, I don't really know if that works. It's a little bit a lot of work, but basically some people do that.
Now, let's talk about optimal dosages and just real real warnings. I played around with all sorts of dosages. Again, it's been over 2 years. I started anywhere as low as 3 milligrams to as high as 30 milligrams dose. And I still never took the recommended dose, which is the 0.5 to 2 milligrams per kilogram. For me, that would have been like 50 to 200 milligrams daily for my body weight. And I think those dosages are outrageous. I do know it's going to cause problems. And again, those high dosages were again typically designed for sick people. A lot of drugs when they're designed, they're designed for people who really need it, not biohackers or people who want to prevent potential problems like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or that. So, keep that in mind. Usually lower dosages do much better.
Um, one thing that, you know, again, more is not better. And I've dealt with this my entire life. I've always thought more is better. More working out, more supplements, more this. And it there's a point of diminishing returns. Uh, and when I played with the higher dosages, what happened to me is slowly but surely I started to feel kind of blah, right? Uh, a bit apathetic about life. Like I didn't really care. I was kind of happy, but really just I wasn't motivated. All right? My drive was lower just for life and even sexually. And it was harder to get erections and it when I did have an orgasm wasn't very, you know, in like good. It didn't really feel as much. It was kind of like numbing. And basically I discovered that I had high serotonin levels. I didn't test blood or anything. And this is the problem when you take, you know, SSRI, serotonin reuptake inhibitoring drugs such as again Prozac and and so forth. And for again I had guys who take it do those serotonin Prozac and some of them are happy whatever it is, but they do become kind of mellow. That's because as serotonin levels go up, dopamine levels come down. And I think men need more dopamine than they do serotonin because that's what drives us. And uh, again, a lot of one major problem with SSRIs is the erectile dysfunction and just not really caring, just being whatever about life.
So when taking it again, methylene blue, do not take it with SSRIs or even uh natural substances such as 5HTP or tryptophan, which do increase serotonin. Just be very mindful. Um, again, you don't want to get serotonin syndrome or serotonin toxicity. You know, if left untreated, it can cause death. Again, that's at really high dosages. So my suggestion with everything is start low. Um, you know, for example, I started with 3 milligrams, right? That's all I started with. And I suggest you start with 3 milligrams or maybe 5 milligrams. I'll show you how I take in a minute. And do that for like two or three weeks. Just see how you feel, right? And do you feel better? Do you feel worse? Do you not feel anything? Right? If you feel great, then stay at that dose. If you don't feel anything after two or three weeks, then, you know, up the dose. Go from like three milligrams to five milligrams or then maybe up it from five milligrams to 10 milligrams and see how you feel. I honestly believe that 10 milligrams is a lot for most people. It's just the right amount of dose. Um, and again, do it for two, three, four weeks. If maybe you're 10 milligrams for like a couple of months and you still don't feel anything, then slowly up it. But it's up to you. Um, keep that in mind. It's your thing. But I always tell people start slow and every two to three weeks, little by little up the dose until you get those desired feelings. Pay attention if you go overboard.
Timing also matters when you take it. Preferably, I suggest taking it more during earlier in the day, morning, because it does tend to give you energy. So, don't take it, you know, late afternoon or night time because it might keep you up. Also, I don't suggest you take it all the time year round. You know, take it maybe uh four or five times a week and then take off a couple days or maybe you do it like for two, three, four weeks at a time and then you take off a week. You shouldn't really take anything all the time. Uh, you never know how your body's going to react, what toxicity levels, what builds up. And you should just always take give your body a break.
The way I take it, again, it comes in capsules and or liquid. So, I just take the liquid stuff. I'm not going to demonstrate it here cuz again, it stains. You have to be like really careful. I got this whole contraption and stuff. You know, it turns Well, you can tell it just turns blue anything I touch. So, I typically put a little bit of water in the shot glass, right? Maybe half of it. Then I put in the drops, right? I put like um five drops. Five drops is I think five milligrams. You'll each one will have a different dosage. Um, but yeah, so this is the 1%. It's USP grade. So you put five drops, right? So this thing will immediately turn blue. I swig it down real quick, right? I try not to let it touch my teeth or whatever. And then I pour water in it again. Swig it down. Pour water in it and swig it down again just to get all that blue or whatever out of my mouth and off my teeth and that's it. So, two or three back wash it. That's it. Now, I've seen people who just to just spray it in their mouth and then their tongue turns blue, their teeth or whatever. U capsules are ideal, but the thing is I started with a uh I've only been doing the liquid because I like to control the dose myself, not if the capsule. What if the capsules came in 10 milligrams or 20 milligrams and I don't want that high a dose. So, I like to um manage it myself. And of course, maybe I'm cheap. The liquid is uh far less expensive than capsules.
The primary reason that I even started taking methylene blue was for two reasons: improving mitochondria because mitochondria is super important for everything that happens in the body. Everything aging is related to uh mitochondria. And uh I first, you know, wanted to improve my mitochondria. This is like at least 20 years ago. It was at Life Extension Foundation. I discovered how powerful CoQ10 was and it improves mitochondria, the powerhouse, and really I did it for just muscle and I like took like 800 milligrams and I felt amazing because of my mitochondria was better, but I couldn't sleep. I felt great and I thought it's been like a month, I'm only sleeping like two or three, four hours a night. Maybe I shouldn't do that dose. And then at that time I lowered it to about 30 or 50 milligrams of CoQ10 and that was a good dose. However, now 20 years later, I need to take a much higher dose, and that's because my mitochondria obviously isn't as good as it was, you know, in my late 20s and early 30s. So, I took it for the mitochondrial improvements, which I'll talk about in a minute, and I took it for all the potential prevention of Alzheimer's and uh uh uh Parkinson's because I have that somewhere in my family gene. So, I want to reduce that.
So, my current usage of methylene blue or my neutropic stack is the following. I take a product called Body Brain Energy, and that's something I've been taking for like 20 years. It just has a bunch of powerful neutropics and all in just one pill. So, that's the that's my go-to thing. I take two in the morning every morning. Uh, the other thing is I told you CoQ10, I love, especially as you get older, especially for the heart, your brain, your muscles, mitochondria. I take 200 milligrams of CoQ10. Ubiquinol, not ubiquinone, uh, ubiquinol. I take that, uh, once, you know, 200 milligrams once or twice daily. I take it with breakfast and with lunch, but again, you don't want to take anything that's going to improve mitochondria too late in the day. Now, Body Brain Energy has CoQ10, but I think it's about 100 milligrams, so I need a higher dose. Uh, I also take 20 milligrams of PQQ. I can't even pronounce it. And that also helps with mitochondria. I also take 1 to 2 milligrams of Selegiline or Deprenyl to enhance dopamine production. I've been doing that for at least 15 or 20 years. Um, it's an old school biohacker thing. And again, dopamine is good for my brain because of the whole potential Parkinson's. Good for drive and it balances out anything I'm dealing with the methylene blue. And then I take about five milligrams of methylene blue daily. I might up it to 10 milligrams. Then I go off. Like for example, I haven't taken any methylene blue for at least 2 or 3 weeks now.
I put links to all this stuff below in the description area if you want to give any of them a try or all of them a try. Um, of course, got to give that legal disclaimer. Don't listen to me. Only listen to your doctor. Um, now there are cool ingredients and products that I take for brain health, neutropics, biohacking stuff, and I'll talk about those in another video. So, make sure you're subscribed and let me know if you're interested in the comment section below what uh questions you have about methylene blue that I didn't cover. I'll cover them in the next video. And um, I hope this was helpful. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you. Thanks.