Methylene blue — a common, inexpensive, and safe chemical — could be used to treat progeria — and ordinary aging:
Progeria results from a defect in a single gene. This gene produces a protein called lamin A, which sits just inside the cell’s nucleus, under the nuclear membrane. Healthy cells snip off a small piece of each new lamin A molecule — a small edit that is necessary for lamin A to work properly. Cells with progeria, however, skip this important editing step. The defective lamin A interferes with the nuclear membrane, causing the nucleus to form bulges and deformations that make normal functioning impossible.
Cells with progeria also have misshapen and defective mitochondria, which are the small organelles that produce energy for the cell. Although previous studies suggested damage to mitochondria in progeria cells, the current study is the first to document the nature and extent of this damage in detail. Cao and her colleagues found that a majority of the mitochondria in progeria cells become swollen and fragmented, making it impossible for the defective mitochondria to function.
The team found that methylene blue reverses the damages to both the nucleus and mitochondria in progeria cells remarkably well. The precise mechanism is still unclear, but treating the cells with the chemical effectively improved every defect, causing progeria cells to be almost indistinguishable from normal cells.
Cao and her colleagues also tested methylene blue in healthy cells allowed to age normally. The normal aging process degrades mitochondria over time, causing these older mitochondria to resemble the mitochondria seen in progeria cells. Once again, methylene blue repaired these damages.
Methylene blue has many uses — including as a placebo:
Physicians would tell their patients to expect their urine to change color and view this as a sign that their condition had improved.
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Methylene blue has been described as “the first fully synthetic drug used in medicine.” Its use in the treatment of malaria was pioneered by Paul Guttmann and Paul Ehrlich in 1891. During this period before the first World War, researchers like Ehrlich believed that drugs and dyes worked in the same way, by preferentially staining pathogens and possibly harming them. Methylene blue continued to be used in the second World War, where it was not well liked by soldiers, who observed, “Even at the loo, we see, we pee, navy blue.” Antimalarial use of the drug has recently been revived. The blue urine was used to monitor psychiatric patients’ compliance with medication regimes. This led to interest — from the 1890s to the present day — in the drug’s antidepressant and other psychotropic effects. It became the lead compound in research leading to the discovery of chlorpromazine.
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It disappeared as an anti-malarial during the Pacific War in the tropics, since American and Allied soldiers disliked its two prominent, but reversible side effects: turning the urine blue or green, and the sclera (the whites of the eyes) blue.
A quick visit to Amazon uncovered plenty of reviews from people using fish medicine on themselves.
(Hat tip to P.D. Mangan.)
I am personally using methylene blue to mitigate autism. Autism is also associated with mitochondrial defects, which are reversed by methylene blue.
I believe that used as an early intervention upon suspicion of autism, methylene blue is a safe and effective cure before the brain changes associated with autism solidify with age.