58 replies to this topic

[gamesguru]

Lol?  Turnbuckle convinced me in the 3rd post that cancer patients don't go out as much, especially when news of how this disease hits pre-existing conditions hard.

 

Those people already have low numbers, and we need to compare against that kind of population (e.g., cancer patient, cautious with isolation).. not against the general population numbers.

[Daniel Cooper]

Lol?  Turnbuckle convinced me in the 3rd post that cancer patients don't go out as much, especially when news of how this disease hits pre-existing conditions hard.

 

Those people already have low numbers, and we need to compare against that kind of population (e.g., cancer patient, cautious with isolation).. not against the general population numbers.

 

Yep.  I made the same point as well.  But even if you compare against the general population you'll see that seeing zero reported cases in a population that size isn't remarkable either, and that probably overly optimistic for that very reason.

 

Taking the general population numbers and trying to extrapolate total cases using some mathematical model and then comparing that to reported cases for this special population makes no sense whatsoever, unless all you're trying to do is make the case for methylene blue look better than it is.

[Hip]

Now, I can't compare total cases in the general population to reported cases in the Methylene Blue Cancer population because that would overstate the difference.  I have to have some way to adjust the reported cases in the Mbc group to reflect the total cases in that group.  If I had that then I could compare the total cases in the Gp group to total cases in the Mbc group.

 

Here's the rub - I don't have a model to do that. 

 

We do have a model for that, as I explained earlier. If N is the total number of coronavirus infections in a given population, then N / 2 is roughly the number of cases with symptoms.

 

Data from the Diamond Princess tells us that. On that ship, they tested nearly everyone for coronavirus, and found that about half the people with the virus have no symptoms, and the other have show symptoms. See table 2 from the Diamond Princess study.

[Daniel Cooper]

We do have a model for that, as I explained earlier. If N is the total number of coronavirus infections in a given population, then N / 2 is roughly the number of cases with symptoms.

 

Data from the Diamond Princess tells us that. On that ship, they tested nearly everyone for coronavirus, and found that about half the people with the virus have no symptoms, and the other have show symptoms. See table 2 from the Diamond Princess study.

 

Geezus, no you don't have a model to extrapolate from reported cases to total cases in the methylene blue cancer patient population.

 

Your model, which is bullshit but lets assume it is 100% correct, it is for the general population. The whole point of that paper is that methylene blue changes the dynamics of the infection, so it will no longer be the same as the general population.  If the dynamics are the same, then methylene blue does nothing.

 

It might eliminate all infections for all we know.  Or, it might simply make infections that would have been symptomatic much milder so that they become asymptomatic and therefore unreported.  You don't know, I don't know, nobody knows.

 

Holy crap I don't know how to make this any plainer to you. 

 

The people on the Diamond Prince were not taking methylene blue.  Therefore the model is not applicable.  

 

And oh by the way, extrapolating from a cruise ship to a country is bullshit from the get go.

 

I'm out.  You clearly are not willing to listen.

[Hip]

It might eliminate all infections for all we know.  Or, it might simply make infections that would have been symptomatic much milder so that they become asymptomatic and therefore unreported.  You don't know, I don't know, nobody knows.

 
It should be obvious it does not matter whether methylene blue eliminates all infections, or just makes them so mild that they become asymptomatic. In either case, nobody gets a serious infection, and nobody dies. That's basically what you want an antiviral drug to do.
 
 
On the 27 March 2020, these 2500 cancer patients were interviewed in the study, and reported no symptoms of coronavirus.
 
By a calculation I did, in the rest of France on that date, you would expect 30 cases of symptomatic coronavirus infection in any arbitrary group of 2500 people. This figure of 30 was arrived at by using the Tomas Pueyo, plus data from the Diamond Princess.
 
So very simply, this suggests methylene blue has a protective effect.
 
 
 
I agree that cancer patients may possibly be staying more at home than the general population, and so more protected from the virus. But this may not even be relevant, as France has been in lockdown anyway, so everyone will be staying at home.



 

I'm out.  You clearly are not willing to listen.

I'm listening, but your argument is confused.


And you keep talking about reported cases, but I am not using report case data at all. I am calculating the number infected, and the number of symptomatically infected, starting with the death toll figures, which are far more reliable.
 
 
 
 

And oh by the way, extrapolating from a cruise ship to a country is bullshit from the get go.

Why? I am only using the Diamond Princess to determine the ratio of symptomatic to a symptomatic. Why should that be different on a cruise ship compared to a country?

Edited by Hip, 09 April 2020 - 04:15 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

 

Why? I am only using the Diamond Princess to determine the ratio of symptomatic to a symptomatic. Why should that be different on a cruise ship compared to a country?

 

Because population demographics matter.  

 

What is the age distribution of the cruise ship passengers compared to the general population? Certainly different.

 

What is the racial makeup of the passengers compared to the general population? Certainly different.

 

What is the income distribution of the passengers compared to the general population?  Certainly different.

 

What is the incident of co-morbities of the passengers compared to the general population? Certainly different.

 

All those things will affect how likely you are to be infected and how likely you are to have significant problems with the infection.

 

And finally - How large of a sample population do you need to achieve statistical relevance to represent a population the size of a country (in the case of the UK about 67 million, about 330 million for the US)?  There is statistical analysis to be done that will tell you how big that sample needs to be to be statistically relevant and cancel out random variation.  I haven't done that math, and neither have you.  Is 712 people a large enough sample to give you a good representation of 70 or 300 million people?

 

And once again, when you put people on an intervention like methylene blue, you will change the characteristics of how the infection develops, unless methylene blue does absolutely nothing. It may change the ratio of symptomatic to asymptomatic.  It may change the R0 (measure of how infectious the virus is).  You don't know is the ratio of symptomatic to asymptomatic if your sample population (let's say your cruise ship) had been taking methylene blue.   I am assuming that you don't think methylene blue is just a placebo.

[Hip]

Because population demographics matter.  
 
What is the age distribution of the cruise ship passengers compared to the general population? Certainly different.
 
What is the racial makeup of the passengers compared to the general population? Certainly different.
 
What is the income distribution of the passengers compared to the general population?  Certainly different.
 
What is the incident of co-morbities of the passengers compared to the general population? Certainly different.
 
All those things will affect how likely you are to be infected and how likely you are to have significant problems with the infection.

But you could find these sort of differences between any two samples of population, so by your view, all of empirical medical science is worthless, because you can never guarantee that are no differences between population groups.

Your view is extremist, because in your worldview, nothing can be known, and all empirical knowledge is suspect.

Thanks, but for my own purposes, I'd rather take the risk that there may be some errors, but at least I am able to provide some rough conclusions and answers, whereas in your case, you are not able to offer anything.



 

And once again, when you put people on an intervention like methylene blue, you will change the characteristics of how the infection develops, unless methylene blue does absolutely nothing. It may change the ratio of symptomatic to asymptomatic.  It may change the R0 (measure of how infectious the virus is).  You don't know is the ratio of symptomatic to asymptomatic if your sample population (let's say your cruise ship) had been taking methylene blue.   I am assuming that you don't think methylene blue is just a placebo.

You are like a broken record player. I've explained this already to you: the symptomatic to asymptomatic ratio does not matter for methylene blue cohort.

And R0 has nothing to do with it, as these 2500 people are not living together and are thus not transmitting the virus to each other. They are scattered throughout the general population. Methylene blue might change R0 if given to a group of people all in close social contact, but that's irrelevant, because these cancer patients will not be picking up the virus from each other, but from the general populace.

Edited by Hip, 09 April 2020 - 11:11 PM.

[gamesguru]

Those 2500 people are in an at-risk group and likely isolating out of extreme fear.  They don't represent the general population who are way more carefree.

 

It is not clear whether it is the isolation or the methylene blue which is keeping them safe of corona.  Further studies of large cohorts are needed to confirm the initial findings.

[xEva]

this could have been an interesting discussion about the observed hypoxia in the worst group of covid cases, presumably due to the virus proteins' affinity for porphyrins which makes heme in hemoglobin dysfunctional (see link to the paper above). Can methylene blue be of help here, or not?

 

There is a fascinating link between covid-19's proposed affinity for porphyrins, porphyrias (disorders when too many porphyrins are produced) and methylen blue. Interesting that most types of porphyria attacks are treated with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, while methylene blue is recommended as a daily treatment for some forms of porphyria.

 

Lots to consider here.

[abelard lindsay]

Some more evidence that Methylene Blue would be a treatment. 

 

Methemoglobinemia is also a brown blood disease .  The primary treatment is methylene blue and oxygen:  https://en.wikipedia...themoglobinemia

 

 

Attached Files

•  EVBYW1CUwAAqf_i.jpeg   182.08KB   0 downloads
•  Methemoglobinemia.png   657.33KB   0 downloads

Edited by abelard lindsay, 11 April 2020 - 06:57 AM.

[gamesguru]

Can we get a second source that COVID patients frequently have methemoglobinemia?  I wasn't able to find anything about this in Chinese or Italian web pages.

[gamesguru]

Interesting alternative drug for HIV,

 

Phase II Trial of Leronlimab for COVID-19 Enrolls First Patients

 

Additionally, leronlimab has now been administered to 15 severely ill patients with COVID-19 at 4 hospitals, with 10 patients being treated at a leading medical center in the New York City area and 5 patients at 3 other hospitals. The patients were all able to be administered the agent under an emergency investigational new drug (EIND), which were granted by the FDA for each individual patient. 

 

“We are encouraged by the positive results demonstrated with leronlimab in the New York patients,” Bruce Patterson, MD, chief executive officer and founder of IncellDx, a diagnostic partner and advisor to CytoDyn, said in a press release. “Our team is working hard to distribute leronlimab to multiple clinical sites to initiate therapy in patients with severe COVID-19 disease. While every patient is experiencing different comorbidities, we are seeing similar clinical responses, which we believe is a reflection of leronlimab’s mechanism of action.”

 

 

And a (sensationalist?) speculative write-up on other ideas how COVID pathophysiology plays out.  May be relevant to the methylene blue hypothesis, but the fact that the article was retracted makes me doubtful of its veracity.

 

The past 48 hours or so have seen a huge revelation: COVID-19 causes prolonged and progressive hypoxia (starving your body of oxygen) by binding to the heme groups in hemoglobin in your red blood cells. People are simply desaturating (losing o2 in their blood), and that’s what eventually leads to organ failures that kill them, not any form of ARDS or pneumonia. All the damage to the lungs you see in CT scans are from the release of oxidative iron from the hemes, this overwhelms the natural defenses against pulmonary oxidative stress and causes that nice, always-bilateral ground glass opacity in the lungs. Patients returning for re-hospitalization days or weeks after recovery suffering from apparent delayed post-hypoxic leukoencephalopathy strengthen the notion COVID-19 patients are suffering from hypoxia despite no signs of respiratory ‘tire out’ or fatigue...

 

Ever noticed how it’s always bilateral? (both lungs at the same time) Pneumonia rarely ever does that, but COVID-19 does… EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

[abelard lindsay]

Dr. Scott Antoine talks on a podcast about Methylene Blue and Coronavirus. (31 minutes in)

 

 

 

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

[gamesguru]

Dr. Scott Antoine talks on a podcast about Methylene Blue and Coronavirus. (31 minutes in)

 

Is this doctor on the front-lines though, no he's just in Indiana.  Furthermore he's not even unemployed, he doesn't have too much time on his hand to research the web, as far as I'm concerned he's just speculating.  And he sounds very unsure of himself around 34:30.  Lot of secondary mechanisms trying to tie together their initial assumption, classic confirmation bias.

 

The only research suggestive of methylene blue is coming from two China studies[1][2] that both have conflicts of interest and study flaws.  They notice an improvement over 3-7 days, but that is typical of people recovering from an illness without taking methylene blue.  Very scientific China

 

Take with a grain of salt.. There is a known association between pneumonia and blood oxygenation. Jumping the gun on assuming the methemoglobin cause could cause more harm than good, ala `Trump promoting hydroxychloroquine` style

[abelard lindsay]

Is this doctor on the front-lines though, no he's just in Indiana.  Furthermore he's not even unemployed, he doesn't have too much time on his hand to research the web, as far as I'm concerned he's just speculating.  And he sounds very unsure of himself around 34:30.  Lot of secondary mechanisms trying to tie together their initial assumption, classic confirmation bias.

 

The only research suggestive of methylene blue is coming from two China studies[1][2] that both have conflicts of interest and study flaws.  They notice an improvement over 3-7 days, but that is typical of people recovering from an illness without taking methylene blue.  Very scientific China

 

Take with a grain of salt.. There is a known association between pneumonia and blood oxygenation. Jumping the gun on assuming the methemoglobin cause could cause more harm than good, ala `Trump promoting hydroxychloroquine` style

 

That's a great way to win a scientific argument: "Trump supported hydroxychloroquine, therefore it doesn't work."  I know a doctor who did virology study at Harvard who runs a private Covid clinic and he uses hydroxychloroquine with very good results.

[gamesguru]

That's a great way to win a scientific argument: "Trump supported hydroxychloroquine, therefore it doesn't work."  I know a doctor who did virology study at Harvard who runs a private Covid clinic and he uses hydroxychloroquine with very good results.

Way to strawman my argument into one I never made.  It is the way he promoted it, not the simple fact that he promoted it.  His method of promoting stuff without waiting for peer-reviewed science is what is worrying.

 

And that's great if your friend has seen promising results so far.  Unfortunately this is the internet and anyone can claim anything that completely f*cks the supply chain.  People with malaria who need the medicine for an approved use literally cannot get it.

 

Like seriously, name-dropping some guy at Harvard would even convince me of anything?  You already tried that tactic in 2011 with the CILTEP stack and "a Nobel laureate at Harvard who founded Biogen"... and the CILTEP stack turned out to be a royal load of bunk.  You signed up a bunch of eager, gullible people. You got them charging in like Galahad without any evidence behind them.  Maybe they were right, but just as likely, they were wrong and did more harm than good.  Regardless of whether they end up being right, their approach was eager and wrong.

 

Don't use pandemic as excuse to become guinea pig. Just follow conventional wisdom.. exercise.. Red onions for quercetin to stabilize mast cells in both directions.  Mushrooms (agaricus) do this too, both enhancing weakened immune systems and blunting cytokine storms.  Obviously vitamin D, and zinc deficiencies are no good for this pandemic, and garlic is unlikely to hurt either.

[BlueCloud]

That's a great way to win a scientific argument: "Trump supported hydroxychloroquine, therefore it doesn't work."  I know a doctor who did virology study at Harvard who runs a private Covid clinic and he uses hydroxychloroquine with very good results.

 

 

Way to strawman my argument into one I never made.  It is the way he promoted it, not the simple fact that he promoted it.  His method of promoting stuff without waiting for peer-reviewed science is what is worrying.

 

 

Guys, you're actually both right. I've said that before, no one should care whether Trump supports or disses HCQ. Or Merkel, Macron, Johnson, Xi Jinping or any other politician for that matter. I wanna know what researchers and scientists think about it. And so should everyone else IMO.

Edited by BlueCloud, 14 April 2020 - 03:19 PM.

[abelard lindsay]

More Methylene Blue anecdotal evidence: 

 

https://medium.com/@...ue-d23fc5a31a4d

 

 

As COVID-19(Coronavirus) ravages the world, a quick, cost effective cure for this malaise needs to be found.

Being a lung specialist in India, I have been treating pneumonia and Tuberculosis patients (with XDR & MDR TB) for more than 42 years.

I’ve achieved remarkable success in treating my patients with Methylene Blue for a long time and with documented evidence.

Methylene Blue is highly effective in reversing fibrosis in the lungs especially in TB patients and will work with COVID-19 patients.

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 14 April 2020 - 03:52 PM.

[Turnbuckle]

More Methylene Blue anecdotal evidence: 

 

https://medium.com/@...ue-d23fc5a31a4d

 

 

This appears to be a hospital procedure--

 

Methylene Blue to be administered as inhalation through a nebulizer depending on disease severity. Nebulization to be given through a nasal mask...as well as sublingually...

 

 

Why sublingually when it is so orally available?

[zorba990]

I've seen some debate about MB effect on Nitric Oxide and still a little unclear if it should be taken away from Citrulline / Agmatine and other NOS enhancers or if the proposed dose I would use
(likely around 500mcg or .5mg) wound't effect that anyway.

Turnbuckle I am wondering if one could just put MB in an aromatherapy diffuser. I suppose if the smoke is blue... lol....

[Daniel Cooper]

Walmart and Amazon will sell you an ultrasonic nebulizer for in the vicinity of $US 30.00 ~ 40.00.  No prescription required.  Never knew that until I just looked.

 

 

[Turnbuckle]

It's likely that MB does not directly attack the virus, but instead manages the inflammation from apoptotic damage, suggesting once again that mito fission will make things worse, while fusion should make things better--

 

Effects of methylene blue in acute lung injury induced by blunt chest trauma

 

People suffering from PC may need a wide variety of treatments, from simple oxygen supplement to serious mechanical ventilation. Many experimental and clinical studies have shown that these patients have oxidative stress and an inflammatory mechanism in tissue damage in their clinical story...

 

In the last two decades, the importance of programmed cell death has been better understood in multiple organ failure and acute lung injury/adult respiratory distress syndrome pathogenesis. Liener et al found the first proof that programmed cell death begins following PC. Apoptotic cell death is caused by massive oxygen radicals....

 

In conclusion, we demonstrated that MB therapy could be used to treat the progression of experimental PC in accordance with our hypothesis. We posit that MB prevented PC by decreasing NO activity in the early period of contusion. Although we determined the beneficial effect of MB on oxidant and antioxidant parameters for treating contusion in the late period, we did not have statistically significant results. However, we demonstrated that MB treatment could be useful in the late period, as supported by histopathological findings. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4103043/

 

 

[Mind]

My wife was sharing the methemoglobinemia theory on facebook today, and facebook labeled it as "fake news". Has anyone else seen this?

 

I haven't read into the hypoxia-iron-hemoglobin theory too much, but it seems like a valid scientific discussion (hypoxia from methemoglobinemia first, then viral overload and pneumonia second). Not sure why facebook would squash the discussion.

[Hebbeh]

My wife was sharing the methemoglobinemia theory on facebook today, and facebook labeled it as "fake news". Has anyone else seen this?

 

I haven't read into the hypoxia-iron-hemoglobin theory too much, but it seems like a valid scientific discussion (hypoxia from methemoglobinemia first, then viral overload and pneumonia second). Not sure why facebook would squash the discussion.

 

Quite honestly, perhaps because it is fake news.  This "theory" was initiated by a few anonymous twitter and reddit posts and swept up by the conspiracy theorists and perpetuated on FB and even by a rabid few here on LC.  In spite of over 2 million COVID-19 cases and over 100 thousand deaths, there has not been a single documented case of patient morbidities due to, or doctor accounts of, blood disorders as the cause of the familiar hypoxia and organ failures reported anyplace in the world.

 

However, hypoxia due to lack of oxygen exchange across the inflamed and fluid filled lungs has been well documented.  In fact, here is a good example of a patient literally at death's door saved by ECMO which involves the patients blood bypassing the lungs to an external artificial lung, oxygenated, and returned by an artificial heart.  If the patients blood was the cause of hypoxia rather than the damaged lung, then the ECMO procedure would of never had a chance.  In fact, the patient was first unsuccessfully treated with the often pandered hydrochloroquine among other drugs (as quoted below).  BTW,  hydrochloroquine and any of the other non-mainstream treatments often promoted wouldn't be of any use in treating if the cause was methemoglobinemia.

 

A team of doctors tried everything to save him, said Dr. Anselmo Garcia, a pulmonologist and critical care physician. Enes Dedic was treated with all the potential drugs used for COVID-19 including hydrochloroquine, azithromycin, Kaletra, Actemra, antibiotics and anti-inflammatories.

 

 

https://www.azcentra...ent/2991613001/

[gamesguru]

Quite honestly, perhaps because it is fake news.

 

However, hypoxia due to lack of oxygen exchange across the inflamed and fluid filled lungs has been well documented.  In fact, here is a good example of a patient literally at death's door saved by ECMO which involves the patients blood bypassing the lungs to an external artificial lung, oxygenated, and returned by an artificial heart... In fact, the patient was first unsuccessfully treated with the often pandered hydrochloroquine among other drugs (as quoted below).  BTW,  hydrochloroquine and any of the other non-mainstream treatments often promoted wouldn't be of any use in treating if the cause was methemoglobinemia.

 

the thing with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is they are anti-biotics.  At least things like remdesivir and kaletra are virus specific.  And leronlimab and actemra show interesting effects modulating the cytokine storm and the progression of the disease.  Ultimately like to see a natural stack, but anything to get the ball rolling

[abelard lindsay]

More Methylene Blue reports:

 

Dr. Ayşegül Çoruhlu, M.D.PhD. 

 

https://aysegulcoruh...id-19-patients/

 

 

 

It would seem that the initial oxygen deficiency associated with COVID-19 is due to the problems with hemoglobin. Does providing patients with decreased oxygen saturation with immediate ventilation support worsen lung damage? Like intravenous vitamin C treatment, is it possible to utilize the intravenous methylene blue treatment in order to prolong the waiting period?

 

[abelard lindsay]

The way I'm thinking of implementing a methylene blue/covid therapy at home, should i get sick with it, which is not an unlikely prospect over the coming months, is to wear my pulse oximeter wristband and if I should go below a certain threshold, to slowly increase my daily methylene blue dose until I hit 70mg/day 3x a day like the patients in the cancer study.  I'm thinking maybe 92% would be a good threshold to start on this.

 

https://www.silive.c...e-oximeter.html

"A pulse oximeter may be used “to see if a ventilator is needed to help with breathing," according to John Hopkins University.

 

Normal oxygen saturation levels typically fall between 95% to 100%, with saturation levels under 90% considered abnormally low and a potential cause for concern."

 

...

 

"Providence St. Joseph Health, the system that cared for the first U.S. novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patient, has been providing pulse oximeters to patients who are likely positive for COVID-19 but have not been admitted to the hospital, allowing them to monitor their condition from home. The country’s first coronavirus patient was admitted to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett in Washington State.

 

“Patients can be OK for awhile, then decompensate rapidly. So, having this capacity to monitor at-risk patients at home has made a huge difference and made our clinicians much more comfortable to leave patients at home rather than admitting them for observation in our acute care facilities," reported Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, chief clinical officer at Providence

 

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 16 April 2020 - 06:24 PM.

[gamesguru]

More Methylene Blue reports:

 

Dr. Ayşegül Çoruhlu, M.D.PhD. 

 

https://aysegulcoruh...id-19-patients/

 

What are you talking about more?

 

She's parroting the same study from Sichuan as everyone else.  It's a simulation study from a computer science university.. not in vivo, it is not even in vitro.  There are no "more" studies or "reports" on this subject at this time.  Just one study that used a simulation in the matrix.

 

You can see a full discussion on why the heme mechanism might not be valid—and why you shouldn't run with it today—in the video below.  Yet, nootropic enthusiasts are in no rush to wait for a peer-review or meta-analysis before delving into off-label uses for their favorite nootropics.  Meanwhile natural immunomodulators with 10x more supporting evidence sit in obscurity, collecting dust?

 

The study even warns you not to treat yourself with potentially unsafe substances, so good job with your selective reading abilities.

Due to the side effects and allergic reactions of drugs such as chloroquine, please consult a qualified doctor for treatment details, and do not take the medicine yourself.

 

[abelard lindsay]

Looks like 75mg 3x a day is what French doctors are now using in this methylene blue clinical trial for covid-19.  

 

https://guerir-du-ca...ns-le-covid-19/

 

(via Google Translate)

Monocentric trial testing the supply of methylene blue at a dose of 75 mg morning noon and evening in patients with Covid-19

 

Edited by abelard lindsay, 17 April 2020 - 02:14 PM.