Methylene Blue: Part 1 with Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima

Boomer Anderson: [00:00:00]Welcome to Decoding Superhuman. This show is a deep dive into obsessions withhealth performance, and how to elevate the human experience. I explore thelatest tools, science and technology with experts in various fields of humanoptimization. This is your host Boomer Anderson. Enjoy the journey.

One of the best parts of hosting this podcast. I get tospeak with some of the most brilliant individuals in the world doing some ofthe most cutting edge things. And today is no different. When I originallyreached out to today's guest, I wanted to talk to him about low level lasertherapy, as well as methylene blue.

And what's the connection between the two you may ask. Wellstay tuned for the episode. But my guest today is Dr. Francisco Gonzalez Lima,and he is a courtesy professor in the department of psychiatry at theuniversity of Texas at Austin. He's received the George I. Sanchez Centennialprofessorship, where he is a professor in psychology, psychiatry, pharmacology,toxicology, at the Institute of neuroscience.

Dr. Gonzalez Lima's current research focuses on thebeneficial neurocognitive and emotional effects of noninvasive human brainstimulation in healthy aging and mentally ill populations. So with a guy like aresume like that, what did we get into? We talked about cytochrome oxidase inthis episode and yes, I split it into two because the conversation was over twohours.

But we kicked things off with cytochrome oxidase. We get alittle bit into the history of methylene blue, and if you stay tuned for nextweek, we talk about methylene blue its applications, how to use it, and why youmay want to look at something that is pharmaceutical grade. The show notes forthis one are at decoding superhuman.com/gonzalez Lima that's.

The show notes for this one are a decoding superhuman.com/fG L. Enjoy my conversation with the absolutely brilliant dr. FranciscoGonzalez. I'll let you guys in on a little secret. My tongue is blue right nowand a little over a year and a half ago, I had the pleasure of doing the exactsame thing. I stuck a Buechele Truckee into my upper lip and let it dissolve.

And my tongue turned blue. That was my first experience ofmethylene blue, which is what we're talking about here today. And that was theearly prototype of something that became Blue Cannatine. Yes, it would beimpossible for me to talk about methylene blue without mentioning Troscriptionsand Troscriptions is a company that I'm very, very proud to be a part of. Butwe use methylene blue in two products.

Blue canteine as well as something called just blue. Andblue cannatine methylene blue is paired with nicotine CBD and caffeine todeliver what I like to call a limitless ride. It's my favorite nootropic today.Then we also have just blue, which is just 16 milligrams of pure pharmaceuticalgrade methylene blue.

You're going to want to turn into next week's episode totalk about why pharmaceutical grade is very, very important. And so if you wantto check this out, head on over to troscriptions.com And use the code BOOMERand you'll get 10% off. Your experience with methylene blue. Let's get back tothe conversation with Dr Francisco Gonzalez Lima

dr. Gonzalez Lima. This is an absolute pleasure. I told you.I've been looking for this conversation for a long time. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:04:06]Thank you.

Boomer Anderson: [00:04:08]Let's get started with just, I would love to hear how you got so fascinatedwith the brain because been in the field for a little while, but what sparkedthe interest in the brain specifically?

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:04:21]Yes. Uh, when I was an undergraduate at Tulane university, new Orleans, I had awonderful, uh, professor, uh, dr. Joanne King, uh, dining, one of the classesshe brought, uh, A human brain that have been fixed. Uh, and, uh, she startedthe second in the brain in front of our, uh, small class. And yeah, we wereable to take a closer look at the structures in the brain.

And she was just a brand new professor, very excited,motivated. And at the time I was a. Interested in doing an honors thesisproject and this sparked my interest in exploring the brain.

Boomer Anderson: [00:05:11]Very cool. And so from there, the rest is history and not now you're leading somuch research in the neuroscience field when it comes to a lot of your work.

I think just to give people a foundational base, um,mitochondrial respiration. Why should people care in terms of foundationally?Why should they care?

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:05:39]The, the key through, uh, the work that I've been doing for many years is howthey would own will function is maintain a neurons, uh, brain tissue ingeneral, uh, is a high demand organ.

In terms of energy use. So for example, uh, more than 95% ofthe oxygen that we breathe is used, uh, by mitochondria and mitochondria areinside the cells and they use that oxygen in a process that is coupled withenergy production. In what they call ATP adenosine triphosphate. But, uh, thekey to understand this is really the key.

To life on the planet because most life on the planetdepends on the use of oxygen. And actually what mitochondria do is we have areaction that transform oxygen into and that's okay. The reaction then iscoupled to adding a false faith in this process of SoCal, oxidative,phosphorylation, it's called Oxy.

They did because it's based on oxygen. And, uh, what thatdos is that oxygen that was bound when he breaks away, it releases heat. Theseheat is what we refer to has calories. So when you, somebody eats a food andyou say that the feud is used as a fuel for energy in your body, what you'resaying is how many calories, how many of these false way bonds can be broken?

And when the fourth is bone are broke and they release asmall amount of heat. Okay. And if you remember in basic chemistry, there aremany reactions where you have a lot of reactants are together, but nothinghappens. And then you provide heat to the beaker where the reaction's reactantsand then all of the soul and products happen.

That reaction takes place. This is exactly how all of thebiochemistry in the body that has to do with energy. Is control. The reactantsare manufacturer they're available there, but nothing happens. Did you breakdown this, uh, ATP to release heat? It's like putting your burner on and thenthe reaction takes place.

You get a problem. Well, the brain depends all the time inthis process because the brain doesn't store energy. Okay. So the energy, theVance on you constantly having availability of oxygen and being able to use theoxygen to generate these ATP molecules that then can release calories. Uh, sothe mitochondria is at the center of being able to maintain your blame, yourbrain, uh, essentially plugging, being able to function.

Amazing.

Boomer Anderson: [00:09:08]Thank you for the explanation. There are a couple of particular. I guess youwould call either chemicals and or therapies that I would love to just drilldown on with you today. But I found one commonality among these two, um,something called  oxidase. And though wemay have addressed it a little bit on the show in the past when it comesparticularly to low level laser therapy.

But do you mind just for the uninitiated cytochrome oxidase.

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:09:40]Yes. Uh, yeah, it's uh, well, let's start with the name. Uh, cyto chrom, uh,Cyto means cell and Chrome means color. So this is actually a molecule thatgives color to the cell, but what does it mean to give color to the Cell? Uh,What color means is that certain wavelengths of light are absorbed, but othersare reflected.

So these a cytochrome oxidase is the so-called main photoacceptor that is accepts light, light is made up of photons. So it acceptsphotons. And what does it, why is it called oxidase oxidase, crown from oxygen.And it is an M sign and him, Simon is a biological catalyst. A catalyst is achemical that is like a matchmaker.

It doesn't, uh, it's not part of the wedding, but it makesthe wedding possible between different, different chemicals. Uh, and, uh, yeah.So what it does is it allows. You remember that I mentioned oxygen that webreathe have to be reduced into water. Well, cytochrome oxidase is the catalystthat has to be there for that matchmaking to happen.

Uh, and, uh, so that 95% of oxygen that we consume that isused for energy production is all use. Or consume in that reaction that iscapitalized by Cibachrome oxidate. So without cytochrome oxidase, it doesn'tmatter how much oxygen we have. We cannot convert that oxygen. Into a processthat will generate energy.

So these names time is crucial to what is referred to as Ihad all week light life, depending on air by air, meaning having oxygen in theair. So all organisms, all cells that use oxygen or a year, a half, these Mside. So from micro to lower organisms, Do OSS. And, uh, these in sign isinside the mitochondria.

So it is a mitochondrial enzyme. So that's the key tocytochrome oxidase. So if your brain is working harder, processing moreinformation, it uses more energy. So it means that it's more cytochromeoxidase. TVP however, If you demand more from your brain, that it can provideat a given time, you're going to need more energies of sustain that.

So these enzyme is highly regulated. They can be so-calledupregulated on demand. And in fact it can be down regulated on demand. If youdon't use your brain, uh, your ability to generate energy also goes down. Sothe advantage of these enzyme is that my first interest was using the enzymehas an index of brain function, because oftentimes you use as an industry of.

A brain function, the amount of oxygen that is consumed, orthe amount of blood flow, bringing the oxygen to the tissue. So this enzyme isthe most direct connection to neuronal function because it directly relates iscoupled with this neuronal activity.

Boomer Anderson: [00:13:35]Can the average person measure that, or is this something that I have to makemyself a Guinea pig and go into a university lab

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:13:41]in order?

Yes. Uh, in, uh, for many years, uh, it was not possible tomeasure this in a noninvasive way. Uh, I have to, uh, Strack the brains, uh,from animals, uh, and, uh, freeze the brains and then process them through a,what is. Referred to, as a histo came before, proceed your receive your word.You can reflect the chemical reactions by, uh, in the tissues.

And in fact, in the early nineties, uh, I develop in my labthe first quantitative, uh, histochemical procedure to be able to measure acytochrome oxidase activity, uh, in. Brain tissue and these open up theopportunity for us to monitor, uh, the same time, but the experiments, uh,were, uh, any difficult because you always have to, uh, at the end of theexperiment, you have to take the brains out and measure it.

So. He was not until very recently that collaborating with,uh, uh, bio engineers. Uh, uh, we have been able to measure this noninvasively,uh, by putting, uh, sensors on the foreheads. So, uh, people, uh, in a way thatin a, in a procedure that we call a broad band. Uh, near infrared spectroscopy,it follows the similar principles that we did with the actual tissue in thelab, but a uses a nanny for a light that can go through the forebrain.

Uh, And in a very broad range of wavelengths because allmolecules, uh,  light at differentwavelengths. And you remember that, I told you the cytochrome oxidase was theprimary full through West sector that we have inside the brain or inside cellsactually. Uh, so weed allows those to know from all the light that we provide.

It allows us to make sure how much of that light is XR inparticular wavelength. And with that, we can calculate how much a cytochromeoxidase concentration is there, uh, through the forehead, uh, in the room. Sowe've been doing that only recently. Uh, our first publication was, uh, Threeyears ago in 2017.

And, uh, before that, uh, we weren't able to measure these.So now we can do it normally in basically people, but it's, uh, it's notsomething that is available, uh, beyond there's broadly, uh, our, uh, twogroups, uh, in Texas. And there is also another group, uh, in universitycollege, London. And that they used to be one in Berlin, uh, Germany.

Uh, but it hasn't been active recently. Yeah. And all ofthese are these, uh, very few places where, uh, they're being able to developindependently, uh, a way to measure. No me, basically from the human hair, uh,cytochrome oxidase,

Boomer Anderson: [00:17:13]it sounds like I need to make a trip to Austin. This is fascinating. And now Iwant to come back to the histochemical, uh, process that you developed in alittle bit, because I think it may your May, 2020 paper.

There was an. Uh, at least when you were working with rats,you brought that back. Um, yes, we can come back to that in a little bit if wehave time, but, uh, with, uh, cytochrome oxidase and forgive me, this is afairly elementary question, but, um, over time, is it something thatdissipates, could it be a marker for longevity, for instance?

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Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:19:48]Yes. A side to promote today's. Yes, it is very tightly related to longevity.Uh, If you can upregulate cytochrome, oxidase, uh, you operate relate the lifespan. Uh, so for example, a baby same full animals like insects, or like a fly,uh, that leaves for a very short time.

If you are able to, uh, regulate cytochrome oxidase insidethe mitochondria, uh, You can measure that they can live longer. And, uh, themain reason for this is, uh, can be . It has to do with two factors. One that Ialready mentioned that, uh, you can use oxygen to produce energy. So energy isavailable for the organism, but number two, Which is very important forlongevity is okay.

The process of using oxygen. Remember I told you involvesthe oxygen being reduced by three. Yeah. I mean the in chemical terms is atransformed into water. Uh, reduction, uh, means, uh, the oxygen binds throughhydrogen and it becomes water. So water is known active is in a neutral type ofa state. And, uh, this is the ideal, the situation that this reaction catalyzedby cytochrome oxidase, but, uh, has you do this reaction?

There is all always a small fraction of the oxygen that isnot fully reduced into water that is not fully known neutralize. That is it'sstill have some electrons around his orbit, that one to react with all thecompounds. And this is what he's referred to as reactive oxygen species. Thesereactive oxygen species are primarily formed.

They're in the mitochondria, in this process of oxygenconsumption for energy production. So the more efficient cytochrome oxidase inmitochondria is to fully reduce oxygen, the water, the less reactive oxygenspecies you have. And these reactive oxygen species is what are also referredto as the main class of.

Uh, free radicals. They won't, they won't to neutralizethese free electrons by binding sharing that electron with some of the compoundnearby. And by doing that, they create what is called oxidative stress. That isthey're oxidizing, uh, molecules like DNA. Or things first, the ones that areimmediately around them inside the mitochondria, then, uh, they oxidize theones that are in the membranes of the mitochondria, the Lipitz membranes, andthen the form.

So both reactions. Uh, by oxidizing one molecule, uh,chairing an electron with one molecule, they push and, uh, and create like achain reaction that is called liquid peroxidation chain. So all of these leadsto what is called oxidated damage. I need to clarify something here that is oftenconfused.

Oxidative stress. By itself is not a entirely a negativething because when you have oxidative stress that serves as an esteem lose. Tocreate antioxidant enzymes. In other words, so ways that the body canneutralize that. And the whole point of the neutralization of the reactiveoxygen species is to make them into water.

So you go through a cascade of reactions that they getcloser and closer water. So which one is the number one? And the oxygen M.People often don't know this, the number we're one and theocracy. The name timeis cytochrome oxidase because it's the one that is capable of converting oxygenfully into water.

So cytochrome oxidase, then those two things, it allows youto Jay, that I have energy from, uh, oxygen in the process of oxidativephosphorylation inside mitochondria. And he has an antioxidant action at thevery beginning of reactions. So this reaction, uh, that has to do withoxidative stress. So by allowing these two phenomenon to go hand in hand, youcan, uh, prolong the life of the cell and you can prolong the life of theorganism.

Boomer Anderson: [00:25:14]This is fascinating and you just eloquently walked us through some prettycomplex topics of biochemistry. So thank you. Thank you very much. Where didyour interest in methylene blue come into play? Or how did you hear aboutmethylene blue?

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:25:32]Yes. Uh, so first, uh, we came up with a way to measure cytochrome oxidase.

Uh, we'll use that for monitoring brain activity. And thenin the process of our research, uh, we clearly saw that when animals wereexposed to complex, uh, or even simple learning task, uh, a learning and memoryprocesses, uh, there was always an upregulation of cytochrome oxidase. So, uh,I became interested in the then.

So what happens when people have a memory, uh, deficiencies,is there a phenomenon that is related to this, uh, use of oxygen, uh, forenergy production? And, uh, one of my good other students and I am embarking ona vicious, uh, project. So the only way we could answer these is by doing thesehistochemical reactions in very fresh brains from him.

So, uh, the. One place in the world that we could do this,uh, was a, is called sun city, Arizona.

Boomer Anderson: [00:26:47]Oh, I thought you were going to say South Africa there for a second, but

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:26:51]I don't know. Uh, this is a retirement community is a city only for retiredpeople. The advantage is that they all belong to the same healthcare system.

Uh, the sown seed, the, uh, health skirt. A system and theyare all people who suffer growing a number of these, uh, diseases of all age.So they are very generous in donating the brains and organs for research. Yeah.So we went there, uh, And a span of summer, literally, uh, working with apathology sound whenever somebody was going to pass away, uh, the pathologistsand I, um, my other students will.

Go there and he will declare the person, uh, there. Andthen, uh, we will have a solo on goal, uh, remove the scalp and get the brainsout and, uh, fresh brains. Yeah. Freeze them. Uh, They were interested incollaborating with me because a has a nail Renee. I will be able to get thisrain and the sec, the brain into small pieces and label the spaces.

And then I will have one piece for me. And I know that piecefor the research program and so on CD. And, uh, and I want to store those.There was spend the soulmate and also use the brain bank that they've beenstoring. And the sec then, so we make a unique sample of, uh, fresh, frozenrain from people with Alzheimer's disease.

And people who were controls that is people who were or hadthe same age and older characteristics, uh, Who were living there in the samecommunity. And oftentimes we even have this spouses of, uh, the ones that hadthe Alzheimer's and we analyze these, uh, using various techniques. All of thetechniques are used for a staining for all these changes that happen in thebrains of people with Alzheimer's.

In addition to this, uh, want the date, the histochemistry,and what we found, uh, That, uh, verified our animal experiments was that theprimary deficit in the fresh brains, not in these fixed the issue that is usedfor all their analysis, but in the fresh brains was at down-regulation orinnovation or cytochrome oxidase in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

Boomer Anderson: [00:29:40]Wow.

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:29:42]Since then, This is how I got to metal and boo, since then I was, uh,interested in, okay, now we know these, this paper came out in 2001, a veryhighly cited paper because no one has been able to, to come up with a sample offresh brains that are so well controlled, like these and, uh, To also clarifysome issues about Alzheimer's.

Uh, these amyloid deposits became very popular. Has thehypothesis for the cost of Alzheimer's, uh, had absolutely no relationship withoxidase, uh, innovation. Uh, what about this

Boomer Anderson: [00:30:34]towel comes up in this discussion

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:30:36]quite a bit as well. Yes. So now is the older, uh, That's the logical sign,that the problem with this, uh, amyloid, uh, uh, and towel, uh, uh, so-calledneurofibrillary tangles.

They want to have the towel, the saints are consequences andnot causes of Alzheimer's disease. And these narrow degenerative changes. Andthey of course, Even though you hear them in con in the context of Alzheimer'sthey take place in all kinds of, uh, neurodegenerative conditions. And, uh, sothey are what you see after years of, uh, this process happening in the brain,this cytochrome oxidase.

Is that the forefront is the early event is the inability ofthe rain to use oxygen to prevent this oxidated damage. Uh, so unfortunatelythe idea was that, uh, that many people. I would span by now, uh, billions ofdollars researching the amyloid hypothesis. You can clean up your brainentirely of this amyloid and he has absolutely no beneficial effect on, uh,your memory or your dementia or the progression of the, uh, nailed or thegeneration or anything of relevance.

You know, Simon's disease. So in these clinical trials, thedrugs were very effective at, uh, not at the beginning at the beginning werehighly toxic, but, uh, once they spend not millions, not hundreds of medium,but thousands of millions and suffering people going through these trials, allthe experiments were a success.

We can clean up all of these. But of course it makesabsolutely no difference. Uh, and it produces a number of them effects. So toanswer your question, the amyloid is not relationship is a company  mechanism. In fact, at the beginning is,sounds in the U one to happen, uh, not later on, uh, and the towelaggregations.

The Amarillo has happened outside the sale. And the Taohappens inside the neurons. And when a nail Rome has this towel that is, has acircle fibrillation inside, it has been phosphorylated inside the cell. Itmeans the cell is functionally. Then it goes, it's just like a body that issitting there. And it still hasn't been removed from the rain.

Yeah, he's completely nonfunctional. So when you identifythese neurons with the phosphorylated tau inside, those neurons arefunctionally gone and you can remove the phosphorylation. Uh, at this point itis like trying to resuscitate, uh, An organism that is already there. Uh, so itis too late when you see that, uh, those, uh, are no longer reversible.

So it's stopping this chain of biochemical change that hasto do with, uh, phosphorylation. Doesn't do anything because don't know wrongscan not use oxygen, cannot produce energy, so they cannot function. So again,all the efforts that are directed towards that and, uh, or that believe thatthat's what the mechanism will be for improving, uh, note, the generation arenot gonna work, uh, or less by mistake, which is what happens with Metro LIMU.

They think that they are acting on the towel or formulation,uh, has the primary event, but in fact, they're producing all their effects oncytochrome oxidase, the benefits, the beneficial ones. Uh, so how methyleneblue comes into this picture? I was, uh, trying to find, uh, I also teachpharmacology and toxicology Ryan to find, uh, is there any compound, is thereanything that I can use to facilitate cytochrome oxidase activity?

I know it normally, if you stimulate your energy use, thenthe enzymes of regulates. So if you use a intellectual. Challenges, uh, duringdesign builds off in your brain, just like when you do exercise, when you, infact, when you do aerobic exercise, uh, the in sighing, uh, operate relaysinside your muscles and your muscles can more effectively use arts.

So to give you an analogy, if you start running and youthink that you run out of air, Uh, you go like, and, uh, it doesn't matter howmuch air you come in. Uh, you cannot generate more energy is because the limitingfactor is the amount of cytochrome onstage. So you're putting more air. Yourcirculation is going, your heart is pumping blood to your brain.

That is okay. But the limiting rate is size. The promoter isif that oxygen cannot be reducing the water, uh, you cannot generate moreenergy. So how can we accelerate go around that process? And I found methyleneblue methylene blue was the key. Through these processes.

Boomer Anderson: [00:37:02]So methylene blue, many people out there may not actually know what it is in myresearch.

You know, this chemical has been around since I think the1890s and was once used for malaria. It's used in cleaning fish tanks. It'sit's got a whole heck of a lot of uses. Do you mind just going through, I wouldlove to hear just more about methylene blue is a compound and then how you.Kind of broke it down.

Pharma law, a pharmacologically to be using her research.

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:37:34]Yes. Uh, Metal and blue is a, it's an exciting saying he was developing the,not in the eighties and nineties, 1878, sick by a German chemist. This wasdeveloped at the beginning of what it's called industrial revolution. The firstthing in industrial revolutions, where the textiles, the companies that makeclothing and they use natural dyes.

Uh, and the cane chemistry was, uh, advancing rapidly at thetime. So they st that dies some chemical dyes and therefore of the blue onesthat were sensitized was what eventually became known as methylene blue. Uh,the most common name at the beginning was Mattel  chloride. Uh, And it belongs to a family orcompounds, uh, uh, that, that, that are, uh, have been related.

To, uh,  things thatare related to all the compounds are common nowadays, but metal and blue wasthe parent compound. The first one that was synthesized with that family. Sowhy was st that dies? Because it reflected blue light. Remember the cytochromeoxidase. I told you a sex photons and reflects. So Madeline blue has thisproperty of absorbing it, that solves red type of photons and reflects the bluetypes.

That's why it's blue. Uh, it was used in the textiles, forexample, to, uh, I see your chart there. That is. Uh, so they will use it forthe app or the, the blue jeans. The boots were, uh, dye with metal and blue.Uh, the, in the 18 hundreds and 19 hundreds at the beginning, uh, making themblue was why, why did they using industry, but then in 1890, because, uh, therewas, uh, scientists in Berlin, uh, called Paul early.

And for elderly. Was the first one to inject. Methyleneblue, this synthetic chemical inside a living organism. He injected in a ratintravenously and the rapper was alive. And then, uh, he, uh, dissected the,the, the, the rat, uh, um, found out something that was a baby. It wassurprising at the time that you could inject the chemical.

Systemically that is going through the circulationthroughout the entire animal, but that it was selectively staining, nervoustissues. So the brain and the peripheral nerves, where the nervous tissue iswhere they became. Yeah. Uh, this, uh, let, uh, fall early to use the term.Magic bullet. This is where the term magic book.

Oh, really?

Boomer Anderson: [00:41:03]From methylene blue,

Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima: [00:41:06]Dylan blue, the original magic bullet. Uh, and, uh, why was it a magic bullet?Because you throw that bullet in, into the circulation and it went all over,but target the nervous tissue. What he did he know was the reason it wasstarted in the nervous tissue. Was that it was being concentrated in mitochondriabecause the mitochondria are the most active, uh, parts of the, sorry, the saledon't have to do with race  with oxygenconsumption, they are more highly concentrated inside, nervous state.

The second wall, the tissue is, you know, their heart. Themuscles are very active, but the number one is a nervous seizure. So this isactually a method metal in blue is actually a mitochondria staying, but theorganization has to be alive when you inject it. So they have to be oxygen  happening. Hmm. Metal and blue finds his wayto this area.

Exchange of electrons. Uh, Do you remember that? I told youabout oxidative phosphorylation and sex hormones? Today's well, they holdprocess of how the food that you eat ends up in calories is because the foodthat you eat is transformed in what are called electron donors and the electrondonors donate and electrons to the electron transport chain.

And that electro moves along several molecules insidemitochondria until the last one that is cytochrome oxidase, which cytochromeoxidase, the only one then that can donate that electron to oxygen. Oxygen isthe. In nature is the ultimate Electrum sector. That's why the process ofremoving electrons from a chemical is called oxidation is named after oxygen.

That's what oxygen does it removes? Electrum it oxidizescompounds. So these phenomenon. Of the electron transport. Normally we get theelectrons from the food that we eat through the electron donors, Avery sayingthe weed becomes basically two electron donors types. What happened? We metDylan blue with methylene blue.

A low concentration has a broken peep that I have not found.In the same way in any other chemical, after 120 years of a syntheticchemistry, eat out the oxidizes and at low concentrations, it maintain cycling.So it donates electrons and it grafts electrons from it, immediate environmentand big. So methylene blue finds a reaction when this is happening and this ishappening primarily inside mitochondria in the electron transport.

And then it becomes an electron donor. To the electrontransport and that electron goes to oxygen. So it accelerates oxygenconsumption as if it were a part of the machinery of the oxidativephosphorylation by accelerating oxygen consumption to accelerate your energyproduction and. You also act as an antioxidant.

Okay. You remember because not only donates electrons, butit can also affect the electrons. So if there are any reactive oxygen speciesthat are not fully reduced, methylene blue can directly interact with them asan antioxidant. So. It is the metal and blue becomes like an artificialElectrum I call it electron cycler because it not only donates, but it can havesect electrons if they're too many, but it has to be a low concentration in lowconcentration in maintains this redox cycle in chemical terms is neitherreduced nor oxidize.

It maintains a net. A redox state that allows it tocontinuously, uh, provide the, so this is how methylene blue can then affectyou the energy per log, Joan antioxidant processes, how methylene blue canprolong life. If you give it to that flight that I told you. Uh, that flight,uh, will live longer, uh, because of the metal and blue, uh, providing energyand, um, preventing oxidative damage.

Uh, but it has to be at this low concentration, if you giveit at a high, constant high concentration becomes primarily and, and, uh, anoxidating agent, it graphs, uh, the electrons, uh, uh, from oxygen and itdoesn't allow oxygen then to be forming. And that doesn't facilitate then theenergy that's where metal and blue, uh, comes to this picture.

But why do you say why you ask you may as well? Why a metaland blue was being used for so many things, because this process of electroncycling is so, uh, you know, as part of redox chemistry, all kinds of reactions,chemical reactions have to do with this exchange of electrics.

Boomer Anderson: [00:47:13]And that is just part one.

I am so excited for part two, because it was such athrilling conversation with dr. Gonzalez Lima. I could literally pick thisman's brain four days and we, it would only cover a handful of topics. He is soknowledgeable and he delivers the message in such a way that anyone couldunderstand it. And that is very, very valuable.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend,share a quote online. And let me know what you think can send an email over topodcast@decodingsuperhuman.com. You can also rate the podcast on iTunes orApple podcasts. As it's now known the show notes for this one or decodingsuperhuman.com/f G L.

And stay tuned for round two next week with dr. FranciscoGonzalez.