80 replies to this topic

[abelard lindsay]

I present to the forum two studies on the inactivation of very dangerous viruses by Methylene Blue in the presence of light.

 

 

Methylene blue photoinactivation of RNA viruses

https://www.scienced...166354203002596

 

We present a review of the current status of the use of methylene blue (MB) photoinactivation of viruses starting with the first early observations up to its current use to inactivate HIV-1 in blood products. Basic mechanism of action studies conducted with model bacteriophages indicate that MB-photomediated viral RNA-protein crosslinkage is a primary lesion and that oxygen, specifically singlet oxygen, is very important also. Basic studies on the mechanism of action with HIV are lacking; however, we do show new data illustrating that viral reverse transcriptase inactivation per se cannot account for MB-mediated photoinactivation. We also show data illustrating that MB photomediates the inactivation of West Nile Virus, a flavivirus, which poses a significant new threat to the continental US. MB photoinactivation of viruses show significant promise because the technology not only offers significant potency but the history of safe MB use in human therapy makes it attractive also

 

 

Inactivation of SARS coronavirus in human plasma by methylene blue/light method

https://europepmc.or...icle/cba/518857

 

SARS-CoV was isolated from the serum of SARS patient and reproduced by VeroE6 cell line. After added to the human plasma which contained different concentrations of methylene blue, SARS-CoV was treated with methylene blue/light for different periods of time and then the sample of plasma was taken to inoculate the cell line for assay of the cytopathic effect. About 30 minutes were needed to inactive SARS-CoV (6.5 lgTCID_(50)/ml) in the plasma which was exposed to visible light (40000 lx) in the presence of 1 #mu#mol/L of methylene blue and only 3 minutes were needed to inactive above titer of viruses if the concentration of methylene blue increased to 5 #mu#mol/L.

 

 

 

 

 

660nm is the red light that comes out of most commercial red light panels and is the frequency most highly absorbed my methylene blue.  The concentrations used to disinfect blood were trivially small and it took only 3 minutes.  I'm wondering: why can't we DIY this at home?  Just take a minimal amount of Methylene Blue and stand in front of a red light panel for a few minutes.  Presumably the 660nm penetrates the skin a little and interacts with blood directly in the blood vessels, so I can't see how this wouldn't work as an anti-viral.

 

Anecdotally, I've always noticed Methylene Blue helps me recover quickly from colds.  Perhaps this technique will supercharge it?  Red light panels are not cheap, but Methylene Blue sure is.  Thus, I think this treatment technique could probably scale really well in clinics, etc.

 

Thoughts?  Comments?

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 04 February 2020 - 05:59 AM.

[abelard lindsay]

I've been trying this the last few days. I take abut 10 mcg of methylene blue and wash my face and nasal passages with some of it and gargle and swallow the rest and stand in front of my red light panel. I coughed a few times yesterday and today I didn't cough. Also, skin looks subjectively healthier with less inflammation in places.

Edited by abelard lindsay, 06 February 2020 - 12:03 PM.

[jroseland]

Do you guys have a source for MB?

 

I used to use Blue Brain's stuff but they don't carry it anymore, I don't think I want to consume the stuff sold by pet stores!

 

 

[abelard lindsay]

Do you guys have a source for MB?

 

I used to use Blue Brain's stuff but they don't carry it anymore, I don't think I want to consume the stuff sold by pet stores!

 

 

Search "Buy USP methylene blue" on duckduckgo (not google).  You'll find some stuff.

[Hip]

I present to the forum two studies on the inactivation of very dangerous viruses by Methylene Blue in the presence of light.

 

The above in vitro antiviral study found a solution of 1 μM methylene blue and 40,000 lux of light inactivated SARS coronavirus in 30 minutes.

 

In terms of safe oral dosages, I think it would be feasible to achieve in the bloodstream the 1 μM methylene blue concentration used in the antiviral study.   

 

I calculate you would need an oral dose of either 41 mg or 820 mg of methylene blue (depending on whether the free drug hypothesis holds in this case) to achieve a free blood plasma concentration of 1 μM.

 

Here is my calculation:

A pharmacokinetic study found that a single oral dose of 500 mg of methylene blue was given to human subjects. This resulted in a mean Cmax of 3905 ng/ml (= 12.2 μM) and a mean half-life of 18.3 hours. Ref: 1

 

So to achieve a plasma concentration of 1 μM, we require an oral dose of 41 mg.

 

But methylene blue plasma protein binding is 95%. Ref: 1  This means 95% of the methylene blue you take will get stuck to proteins in the blood (and the free drug hypothesis says that substances bound to blood proteins become inactive). Thus assuming methylene blue follows the free drug hypothesis (aka: free drug principle), we need 20 times the oral dose to achieve a free plasma concentration of 1 μM, which will be a dose of 820 mg. If it does not follow the free drug hypothesis, then an oral dose of 41 mg would be fine.

 

 

As a malaria treatment, methylene blue oral doses of 300–1000 mg per day total in divided doses (eg five times per day) were given. Ref: 1 So an oral dose of 820 mg appears to be safe.

 

Such high doses of methylene blue can cause serotonin syndrome, though, as methylene blue is a potent inhibitor of monoamine oxidase.  And methylene blue is contraindicated in G6PD deficient patients as it can cause severe hemolysis.

 

 

 

However, the problem is getting the 40,000 lux of light into the bloodstream. This level of light is equivalent to direct sunlight on a sunny day. But when you shine light through body tissues, it is very quickly attenuated. Red light penetrates more deeply than other colors, but after around 4 mm of tissue, the red light is almost completely attenuated.

 

This is obvious to see if you shine a bright flashlight through the skin and tissue of the cheeks of your mouth. Only a very dim red light appears on the other side of your cheeks. 

 

So I don't think you are going to be able to get a sufficiently bright light into your bloodstream.  

 

 

 

Also, the antiviral mechanism of methylene blue + bright light is via the creation of singlet oxygen, a highly reactive but very short lived form of oxygen (it lasts only microseconds in solution). While singlet oxygen might be safe as a virucide for donated blood products, I am not sure about the safety of generating singlet oxygen inside a living body. So this would need to be investigated.

 

Singlet oxygen is also generated by the action of light on hypericin, an active ingredient of the herb St John's Wort. One paper suggested that in the eye (where light can shine in), the singlet oxygen might damage the eye lens. And another person taking St John's Wort developed neuropathy as a result of the singlet oxygen — see here.

Edited by Hip, 10 February 2020 - 10:32 PM.

[abelard lindsay]

 

However, the problem is getting the 40,000 lux of light into the bloodstream. This level of light is equivalent to direct sunlight on a sunny day. But when you shine light through body tissues, it is very quickly attenuated. Red light penetrates more deeply than other colors, but after around 4 mm of tissue, the red light is almost completely attenuated.

 

 

 

 

 

That's why I'm suggesting using 660nm red light which is the frequency most highly absorbed my methylene blue.  You can get some pretty bright 660nm red light panels. 

 

As an aside, I talked to a professional physicist and she said they don't even have good models for why materials are reflective or absorb light at given wavelengths, they just have to measure it empirically.  For example, teflon is extremely reflective of ultraviolet light, and that's just an empirical observation with no model or theory behind it.  I wear opaque tanning bed eye protection during the use of methylene blue and a red light panel. 

 

Sure singlet oxygen species aren't good for you, but the body has anti-oxidant defenses to quench free radicals and  it's how immune cells attack disease in the body.  Viruses and bacteria do not have anti-oxidant defenses, so they are much more easily killed.  Ozone therapy also takes advantage of this principle.

 

I figure that blood vessels near the skin would receive an adequate light dose, and over several minutes, blood throughout the body should flow through them if the full body was exposed to a big 660nm light panel.  I imagine the brightness of the light, concentration of methylene blue, etc could all be experimentally tuned to optimize the effect and minimize side effects.

 

I imagine one could pull the blood out and run it through the 660nm light and pump it back in similar to a dialysis machine.

 

The thing I like most about this potential modality is it could theoretically be cheap and easy to scale up for use in thousands of patients and be dirt cheap if it can be perfected.

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 10 February 2020 - 10:49 PM.

[Hip]

I happen to have a bright red 660 nm LED bulb, and also a lux meter (I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, so a lux meter is a useful tool).

 

At point blank range, I measured 30,000 lux from this bulb. But then when I passed the light through my cheek and measured the lux on the other side, it was around 100 lux. I measured the thickness of my cheek to be about 8 mm. So just 8 mm of tissue is enough to attenuate red light from 30,000 lux down to just 100 lux. 

Edited by Hip, 11 February 2020 - 09:34 PM.

[abelard lindsay]

I happen to have a bright red 660 nm LED bulb, and also a lux meter (I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, so a lux meter is a useful tool).

At point blank range, I measured 30,000 lux from this bulb. But then when I passed the light through my cheek and measured the lux on the other side, it was around 100 lux. I measured the thickness of my cheek to be about 8 mm. So just 8 mm of tissue is enough to attenuate red light from 30,000 lux down to just 100 lux.

The blood they're sterilizing in the studies are probably in containers wider than 8mm, so the internal areas of the container are probably also similarly shaded.

[NLTCrow]

 

I figure that blood vessels near the skin would receive an adequate light dose, and over several minutes, blood throughout the body should flow through them if the full body was exposed to a big 660nm light panel.

 

If you were exercising vigorously while dosing yourself with the 660nm light, shouldn't the increased blood flow provide increased exposure to the light? 
 

[abelard lindsay]

Someone picked up this research in 2020, and in this JUST PUBLISHED study, is using it to deactivate SARS-CORONAVIRUS!!!!

 

https://onlinelibrar....1111/vox.12888

 

Background

Emerging viruses like severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS‐CoV), Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) and Nipah virus (NiV) have been identified to pose a potential threat to transfusion safety. In this study, the ability of the THERAFLEX UV‐Platelets and THERAFLEX MB‐Plasma pathogen inactivation systems to inactivate these viruses in platelet concentrates and plasma, respectively, was investigated.

Materials and methods

Blood products were spiked with SARS‐CoV, CCHFV or NiV, and then treated with increasing doses of UVC light (THERAFLEX UV‐Platelets) or with methylene blue (MB) plus increasing doses of visible light (MB/light; THERAFLEX MB‐Plasma). Samples were taken before and after treatment with each illumination dose and tested for residual infectivity.

Results

Treatment with half to three‐fourths of the full UVC dose (0·2 J/cm2) reduced the infectivity of SARS‐CoV (≥3·4 log), CCHFV (≥2·2 log) and NiV (≥4·3 log) to the limit of detection (LOD) in platelet concentrates, and treatment with MB and a fourth of the full light dose (120 J/cm2) decreased that of SARS‐CoV (≥3·1 log), CCHFV (≥3·2 log) and NiV (≥2·7 log) to the LOD in plasma.

Conclusion

Our study demonstrates that both THERAFLEX UV‐Platelets (UVC) and THERAFLEX MB‐Plasma (MB/light) effectively reduce the infectivity of SARS‐CoV, CCHFV and NiV in platelet concentrates and plasma, respectively.

 

 

 

[Daniel Cooper]

40,000 lux is an impressive level of illumination.  And they were doing that with human plasma outside of the body, so presumably in optically clear containers.  How one would achieve those flux levels inside the body via external application appears to be left to the reader.

 

I would suggest you'd need to pump the blood out of your body, expose it to this level of illumination, then put it back in on a continuing basis.  Sort of like a dialysis machine with a freaking big light in the middle of it.

 

 

 

 

[abelard lindsay]

40,000 lux is an impressive level of illumination.  And they were doing that with human plasma outside of the body, so presumably in optically clear containers.  How one would achieve those flux levels inside the body via external application appears to be left to the reader.

 

I would suggest you'd need to pump the blood out of your body, expose it to this level of illumination, then put it back in on a continuing basis.  Sort of like a dialysis machine with a freaking big light in the middle of it.

 

They were using visible light.  If you use 660nm light, you'll have much better absorption of energy into Methylene Blue:

 

vs.

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 27 February 2020 - 06:27 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

You're going to also get excellent adsorption of light at that wavelength by the body.  The penetration depth of 650nm light is quite anemic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[abelard lindsay]

More info about Methylene Blue photodynamic therapy to treat cancer, virus and fungal infections.  The study has some pretty dramatic photos of skin diseases, including cancers, that Methylene blue + Red light therapy has cleared up.

 

https://www.scienced...572100005000979

 

 

 

Methylene blue (MB) is a molecule that has been playing important roles in microbiology and pharmacology for some time. It has been widely used to stain living organisms, to treat methemoglobinemia, and lately it has been considered as a drug for photodynamic therapy (PDT). In this review, we start from the fundamental photophysical, photochemical and photobiological characteristics of this molecule and evolved to show in vitro and in vivo applications related to PDT.The clinical cases shown include treatments of basal cell carcinoma, Kaposi's Sarcoma, melanoma, virus and fungal infections. We concluded that used together with a recently developed continuous light source (RL50®), MB has the potential to treat a variety of cancerous and non-cancerous diseases, with low toxicity and no side effects.

"We developed an inexpensive light source called RL50® that emits light that covers the red spectrum region from 600 to 750 nm. The RL50® spectral radiance also overlaps with the absorbance spectrum of the MB solutions [9]."

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 02 March 2020 - 11:00 PM.

[Oakman]

Full text .pdf of the same study from your link at science direct https://www.research...al_applications

[granmasutensil]

Irradiating the blood stream with red light is quite easy. The technology has been around for 5+ years it's a red nasal laser that goes up the nose and has a clip. There are also led ones but clearly won't put out the same energy intensity. There is a massive amount of blood vessels close to the surface of the nose. In fact with the right wavelength one can irradiate part of the brain too(they have a specific device for that). Here is the company that makes them. https://vielight.com...n/             But the question is, is it safe to do this to ones blood? Also what about near infrared LED's? Penetrates significantly deeper than 660 red light like around 2 inches and is still close in spectrum so I assume the effect isn't diminished as much? A person can buy near infrared LED bulbs that could do a wide area and just plug into a lamp. https://www.amazon.c...1?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Has anyone talked about taking 4+ gram doses of buffered vitamin C which is when it starts acting like an oxidant? Or BHT, EGCG, Monolaurin, Spirulina? https://epinerein.co...-coronavirus/  Or Palmitoylethanolamide? https://www.hindawi....ji/2013/151028/

Edited by granmasutensil, 05 March 2020 - 02:07 PM.

[Lady4T]

I've been trying this the last few days. I take abut 10 mcg of methylene blue and wash my face and nasal passages with some of it and gargle and swallow the rest and stand in front of my red light panel. I coughed a few times yesterday and today I didn't cough. Also, skin looks subjectively healthier with less inflammation in places.

 

Are you using MB powder or liquid? 

How do you arrive at 10 mcg of MB dose?

[abelard lindsay]

Are you using MB powder or liquid? 

How do you arrive at 10 mcg of MB dose?

 

I use 1 mg in a liter of water and then take  about 10ml of that dilution.  I just eyeball it though.  People have safely taken several hundred milligrams at a time for malaria treatment.

[abelard lindsay]

More Methylene Blue antiviral stuff:

 

https://academic.oup...11/1711/5043304

Three different antivirals were investigated for their ability to inactivate HCV in vitro. Only MB completely inactivated HCV in the presence of all perfusion solutions. Hepatitis C virus-contaminated kidneys from mini pigs were treated with MB and hypothermic machine perfusion without any negative effect on the graft. Human liver-uPA-SCID mice did not establish HCV infection after inoculation with flow through from these kidneys.

 

...

 

Although addition of MB for 10 and 30 minutes did not inhibit HCV infectivity completely, 60-minute incubation with MB was effective if more than 1 µM MB was used in the assay.

 

...

 

As expected, the application of MB at concentrations of 1 µM (data not shown) and 10 µM (Figure 3A) was not toxic under control conditions (for a positive control for toxicity, cells were treated with 500 µM hydrogen peroxide). Under hypothermic conditions, which itself elicited injury in both cold storage solutions (for a time course of the injury in UW solution, see Figure 3B), no toxicity of MB was observed (Figure 3B–D). In contrast, MB even proved to exert protection against hypothermic injury with slight, nonsignificant protection at a concentration of 1 µM and significant protection at a concentration of 10 µM

 

...

 

In our study, virus inactivation with 1 µM MB was successful after 60 minutes and for 7 different HCV genotypes. Methylene blue is activated by visible light, leading to the release of singlet oxygen, which attacks the viral lipid envelope. 

 

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 12 March 2020 - 01:05 AM.

[zorba990]

So methylene blue plus this? https://vielight.com...prime-systemic/
I use one drop methylene blue in the bath sometimes but I doubt I am absorbing much

[kurdishfella]

I ordered some MB to do a review on for this reason, but what is the half life of it 2 hours or 24 hours i see different answers 

Edited by kurdishfella, 13 March 2020 - 10:40 PM.

[eigenber]

What is your source for MB?

What doses will you take?

Will it be combined with light therapy?

[kurdishfella]

Mitolab has USP, I will probably be taking around 1mg, orally swallow, and will not use light therapy.

Edited by kurdishfella, 13 March 2020 - 11:35 PM.

[eigenber]

Ok. Thanks. I ordered the same yesterday. Maybe the dose to disrupt the virus is less than that needed for malaria, which seems pretty massive. 

[thompson92]

I ordered some MB to do a review on for this reason, but what is the half life of it 2 hours or 24 hours i see different answers 

 

The half-life of MB is approximately 12 hours and is eliminated by the kidneys.  This is why it is administered in divided doses.

[abelard lindsay]

Looks like there's a protective effect with Vitamin C that doesn't affect the virus destruction when plasma is exposed to 40,000 lux for an hour.  I will now start taking vitamin C with my methylene blue.

 

https://europepmc.or...le/med/16638223

 

[Protective effect of vitamin C on protein activity in plasma during virus inactivation].

 

To determine whether addition of vitamin C (Vit C) to single-unit plasma could influence the efficacy of inactivating viruses and could maintain the activity of plasma proteins by methylene blue (MB)-light treatment. Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) Indiana strain was used as the indicating virus. Human plasma containing VSV was added with different concentrations of Vit C and final concentration 1 micromol/L MB and irradiated by fluorescence at an intensity of 40,000 lx, samples were collected at different times for detection. Cytopathic effect was used to test the effect of virus inactivation. A segment of the nucleic acid encoding capsid protein of VSV was amplified with RT-PCR. Some methods, such as the Clauss method, the one-stage method, microimmunoelectrophoresis, were used to investigate the changes of plasma components. The results showed that when the VSV plasma was added with 240 micromol/L Vit C and treated by MB-light irradiation for 60 min, the titer of VSV decreased by more than 8 lg TICD50/ml. Meanwhile, target segment amplification of VSV was also negative. The recovery rates of fibrinogen and coagulation factor VIII (FVIII: C) were 83.55% and 81.67% respectively, which had significant difference comparing with the routine MB-fluorescent light treatment. Most of plasma proteins were not affected significantly. No change in immunogenicity of these proteins was observed by using microimmunoelectrophoresis. It is concluded that virus inactivation is not influenced and plasma proteins are effectively protected by Vit C. Vit C can be used as a protector and is beneficial to improving the quality of plasma subjected to MB- photodynamic treatment

 

 

[zorba990]

Looks like there's a protective effect with Vitamin C that doesn't affect the virus destruction when plasma is exposed to 40,000 lux for an hour. I will now start taking vitamin C with my methylene blue.

https://europepmc.or...le/med/16638223
[Protective effect of vitamin C on protein activity in plasma during virus inactivation].

Excellent! Since Vitamin C also removes the staining Blue effect as well...

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

I just recently started taking Methylene Blue (MB) for other reasons, but it occurred to me a week ago that it might be effective in preventing COVID-19 infection, as well as help to reduce some symptoms and the severity of the disease.

 

For $21.00, I purchased 100 gms of Methylene Blue on Amazon and had it in about a week. It's not pharmaceutical grade, but then the danger from heavy metals is overblown, I think, at the low concentrations at which MB is typically used by persons in this forum. While some non-pharmaceutical MB may be contaminated by parts-per-million mercury, we only ingest it in milligram or microgram amounts. At that level of dilution, any heavy metal contaminants are likely measured in parts-per-billion or less. The EPA states that 8 mcg per day of mercury is safe for a 176 lbs. adult (average), so the chances of heavy-metal poisoning when using just about any MB available seems really low.

 

While I had read about the use Methylene Blue in concert with light therapy to inactivate RNA viruses (particularly coronaviruses), it also occurred to me that MB could act as a preventative measure as well. Persons taking MB regularly might be less susceptible to infection by COVID-19, and the MB might help the body fight off some of the dangerous symptoms of that disease.

 

For example, I've been taking Methylene Blue at a rate of about 0.15 mg/kg of bodyweight daily. Even at that relatively low level I've noticed that I've been finding it much easier to breathe, which was not something I had expected or known about MB.

 

I'm blessed with asthma, chronic bronchitis, and severe sleep apnea, so I'm in a high-risk category for COVID-19. For years I have felt like I struggle to breathe practically all the time.

 

This past week I can take a good breath...and it feels good, like my lungs are effectively working again!

 

Whether this is actually the case that it will stave off COVID-19, or at the very least render it less deadly, has yet to be seen, but I'm willing to bet that it will. I'm confident enough that I'm trying to convince all my friends and family to take it. Given that I can produce several thousand doses from my 100 gram bottle, it's about one of the least expensive ways to prepare for the coronavirus and other viral diseases.

 

A dose of Methylene Blue and a few minutes of sunlight on a nice day might make all the difference...

 

 

[poonja]

Question.  Planet fitness has a full body red light treatment available to members.  Would this qualify as an acceptable resource to add to methylene blue oral use.

[kurdishfella]

Mitolab told me they have been receiving large number of orders recently, wonder what people order for coronavirus