Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Blue dye known to cure Alzheimer's cures Alzheimer's Shocker!

There is a blue dye, methylthioninium chloride, otherwise known as the common biological staining agent and chemical indicator Methylene blue which seems to kill Alzheimer's stone dead. Well perhaps that is over egging it a bit, but it tackles the root observation of Alzheimer's which is a tangle of the tau proteins in neurons.

Apparently a researcher looking at tau proteins tried to dye them with methylene blue and found they disappeared 20 years ago.

It has taken this long, that is 100 years from finding the root pathology, and 20 years from finding a clearing agent for some research to be done.

Whilst I hail this storming success, which not only promises to halt Alzheimer's but in part reverse it, you have to ask why this research has taken so long and why it has taken a drug company to fund it? Alzheimer's is already a very expensive disease economically.

Curiously though, if the "drug" is expensive and unavailable on the NHS there may well be some jobbing chemists quite prepared to make the stuff up.

It will be cheap as chips after all.

The BBC has this, whilst the Telegraph has this.

Incidentally the Telegraph nor the BBC broadcast reports mention that it is a common chemical that has been available for years, whilst the Telegraph suggest that it may cost as much as £2.50 a day, half the price of the current non prescription curative, a pack of cigarettes. I do not know what other stiff is in "Rember" but suspect we will not find out easily. If it is just Methylene Blue, then it can be make up as a solution for little and I suspect available to even the poorest in society.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Phase II Clinical trials have reportedly used dosing of 60 milligrams per day (what was found to be optimal). I have a concern that the news reports are using "mg" for the term micro-gram (for lack of the greek letter Mu) and consequently, informing the public that the doses are 1000x greater than what they actually used in the Ph-II trial. Does anyone know what is the correct dosing is - on the order of milli-grams or micro-grams?

Anonymous said...

A recent article on methylene Blue (MB) is
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/reprint/22/3/703
(However, to download it costs US$ 7.00)

According to the authors best results were obtained at 100 nanomolar concentration, that is, 100x10^(-9) mol in one liter of water. The molecular weight of MB is about 320.
Since adults have about 3 liters of blood plasma and MB is well absorbed, non-toxic and metabolizes fast, a reasonable dose is as follows:

Dilute 1% commercial MB tenfold to obtain 0.1% MB
Take one drop of 0.1% MB (in half glass of water, to avoid blue tongue) three times a day.

For example, in a measuring cup add water to 25 ml of 1%MB until you reach the 250 ml mark.
At 20 drops per ml this provides 5000 drops, enough for 54 months or four and a half years.

Regards,
Daniel

memory disorders said...

Hello friend very interesting blog about Blue dye known to cure Alzheimer's cures Alzheimer's Shocker! I would like to add this information about blue dye: Methylene blue is a heterocyclic aromatic chemical compound with molecular formula: C16H18N3SCl. It has many uses in a range of different fields, such as biology and chemistry. At room temperature it appears as a solid, odorless, dark green powder, that yields a blue solution when dissolved in water. The hydrated form has 3 molecules of water per molecule of MB. Methylene blue should not be confused with methyl blue, another histology stain, new methylene blue, nor with the methyl violets often used as pH indicators.

Anonymous said...

bye