# RFK Jr. Takes This Blue Dye for Brain Health—I tested it with EEG **Channel:** Cody Rall MD with Techforpsych **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AldJpvvNcNk **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/AldJpvvNcNk ## Chapters - 0:00 — Introduction to Methylene Blue Hype - 0:38 — Personal Week-long MB Experiment - 2:57 — Historical and Medical MB Applications - 5:14 — Biohacking Claims and Limited Research - 6:24 — Mechanism: MAO Inhibition and Serotonin Effects - 8:42 — Brainwave Findings on Peak Alpha Performance - 9:32 — Final Thoughts and Recommendations ## Transcript **[0:00] Speaker A:** Hey everyone. I'm Dr. Cody Roll, a US Navy trained physician. And I've been improving my brain health, as well as the health of my clients through a combination of diet, meditation and biohacking techniques for over the past 10 years. Lately, I've been seeing this viral clip of RFK Jr dropping this mysterious blue liquid into his drink on an airplane. Turns out that substance is something called methylene blue, which is a compound being hyped up in the biohacking community right now as having various positive effects to increased energy, better memory and focus, and even overall better health and longevity benefits. **[0:38] Speaker A:** Now, with claims like that, I decided that I need to take a look at the research for methylene blue, but also really put it to the test with my brain health measurement system. So I took methylene blue for over a week and tracked my brain performance through the Muse Headband Peak Alpha brain health rating system, as well as my focus throughout the day with the neurable Brainwave Focus tracking headphones to see if methylene blue really improved my brain performance metrics. Now, I have to tell you, after a week of testing, I was not very impressed with the results. My Muse Headband brain health scores were very average on methylene blue days. There were even multiple days where the score was lower several hours after I took the methylene blue in the morning. For example, on one day, I had a peak Alpha score of 10.5Hz first thing in the morning. **[1:26] Speaker A:** Then I took methylene blue about an hour later at 9am, and then I had a peak Alpha score of 10.2Hz around noon, which is a 0.3Hz drop. And my neurable focus tracking scores were pretty good that afternoon with a 27% focus span, which is great, but it's not something that really impressed me. And I noticed that I didn't feel very well during the work session. It was really disappointing because in past experiments I've seen clear boosts from brain health supplements like Alpha Brain and Magic Mind, both of which actually improved these brain health metric scores. So all of this raises an important question. If methylene blue is supposed to enhance cognitive performance, why did I myself not actually feel very good while taking methylene blue? Could the hype be exaggerated? Does it only work under certain conditions? Now, to answer this, we need to take a look at what methylene blue actually does in the body to see who actually could benefit from it the most and parse out if this is just another biohacking placebo or if this could really help people. **[2:28] Speaker A:** What I found might actually really Surprise you, so be sure to stick through the video. So I took methylene blue every day for a week, and I gradually increased the dose to about 20 milligrams per day to see if it would boost my brain function. But despite all the hype, my muse peak alpha scores stayed very average, and my nurable EEG focus scores didn't improve much. Now, overall, I felt a little bit more calm while taking methylene blue, but instead of experiencing a mental boost, I actually felt less motivated. **[2:57] Speaker A:** Now, I'm not sure if I was coming down with a cold or something that week. I know that my daughter and my wife were sick the previous week, so I might have been fighting something off, but I generally just didn't feel very good while I was taking methylene blue. Now, it's funny is I actually remember remembered methylene blue from early in my psychiatry training days, because if you look at the history of psychiatric medications, methylene blue was actually a precursor compound to a lot of the mental health drugs that we use today. It was originally discovered in 1890 as a textile dye because it does stain things blue and purple. They found that they could actually stain bacteria to be able to see them under a microscope. And eventually someone figured out if you ingested the stuff, that actually could help treat malaria, because it blocks the malaria parasite's metabolism. **[3:45] Speaker A:** The researchers also noticed that people that were taking methylene blue tended to have a more calm demeanor. It had a calming effect on people that, especially if they had a history of being aggressive. Eventually, with more research, they found out that it actually can cross the blood brain barrier and it blocks an enzyme called monoamine oxidase, which is an enzyme that breaks down all types of different neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. And by 1940, scientists were using the methylene blue chemical structure and modifying it into a bunch of the different drugs that we still use in psychiatry today. And it's a really interesting compound because they continued to find different effects it would have on the body. It actually became an FDA approved treatment for something called methemoglobinemia, which is a rare disorder where the iron in your hemoglobin has too few electrons and limits its oxygen delivery capabilities, which causes low oxygen levels throughout the body and fatigue. **[4:45] Speaker A:** Methylene blue helps deliver extra electrons to the iron in your hemoglobin in your blood to help it carry more oxygen. But it's a really rare disorder, and it looks like from my research that most people are just not walking around with too few electrons in their iron in their blood. And also the recommended dosages of methylene blue to treat Methemoglobinemia are like 10 times the amount that what you find in these biohacking tinctures. And it's delivered through an IV directly into your blood instead of taking it orally. **[5:14] Speaker A:** Those are all things to think about as we dive into why people are taking it for biohacking. One of the main selling points from biohackers currently is that methylene blue supposedly can act as an electron shuttle and help electrons get through the energy production chain of mitochondria to create more biological fuel in the form of ATP. Theoretically, this is going to give you more energy. It also can act as an antioxidant by removing reactive oxygen species, which is a natural byproduct of metabolism and ultimately causes aging over time. Most of this has just been shown in laboratory settings where they're taking a look at individual cells and exposing them to methylene blue. And this really hasn't been studied too well in live humans in actual clinical trials. There's some clinical evidence that it can have mild improvements with people that have memory issues or really poor mitochondrial health. **[6:05] Speaker A:** But you would think that if it had a dramatic effect for people that are developing dementia or Alzheimer's, it would be used a lot more in that setting. But we really don't see docs using it in mainstream medicine for that purpose. And the big thing that became apparent when I was looking at methylene blue is does it actually have any effects on healthy people? Does it make them more healthy? **[6:24] Speaker A:** Some docs on social media, like Dr. Paul Saladino, he's a little controversial, but I do like what he has to say about this. He argues that methylene blue only benefits people with really poor mitochondrial function. **[6:48] Speaker B:** And in someone that has a broken mitochondrial electron transport chain, it can take electrons from NADH or FADH 2 and move them along the chain. But if you have a healthy mitochondrial electron transport chain, it's decreasing the amount of ATP you're producing. That's been reproducibly shown. So a healthy human is not benefiting from methylene blue. Get rid of it. It's. It's bullshit. **[7:08] Speaker A:** It It got me thinking, because when I learned about methylene blue in my psychiatry training, it wasn't like a stimulant that would latch to a receptor in your brain and make you more focused. It instead a weak monoamine oxidase inhibitor, meaning that it blocks the breakdown of neurotransmitters in your brain, and it tends to favor the one that breaks down serotonin. Now, in the development of psychiatric drugs, they found inhibitors that were a lot stronger, like Sledgeline, that created a lot more serotonin in your system. But methylene blue is known to increase some serotonin in your system, which is why on all these bottles, there's a warning label that you're not supposed to take it with serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications, which a lot of people are on these days, because too much serotonin can cause something like serotonin syndrome. And personally, I think that if you're not suffering from a overactive fight or flight response from your amygdala and having a lot of anxiety, too much serotonin can actually reduce your drive a little bit. **[8:04] Speaker A:** It makes you feel more comfortable and relaxed, but it takes the edge off the norepinephrine and dopamine. That actually allows us to feel motivated and actually get pleasure from exerting a lot of effort to achieve goals. I noticed that when I took lexpro after my best friend passed about four years ago. I took it for about a year. It really helped with anxiety, but my drive took a little bit of a hit. Sometimes it's hard to get motivated on these SSRIs, and I've had patients tell me that SSRIs are great for helping with anxiety, but they do take away your motivation a little bit at times and can make you feel a little flat. Generally, if that happens, I try to back off the dose, but that serotonin effect is very real. So what could be really happening here with methylene blue? **[8:42] Speaker A:** When I took a look at brain wave research surrounding methylene blue, there wasn't a whole lot, but it did suggest that it can have some effects on alpha brain waves to help you feel more calm, but not necessarily very sharp. But honestly, honestly, there's not any research out there that I could find that talked about methylene blue's effect on peak alpha, which is what the muse is now measuring. So I guess I'm breaking some ground there and seeing some measurements that people haven't really talked about. And if peak alpha is supposed to be a measurement of my brain health and age and my cognitive performance, methylene blue doesn't seem to be helping it at all, and in some cases even decreased it. If anything, my Own data showed no improvement in my focus. My peak alpha score was lower. And it's marketed as being this cognitive enhancer, but I really didn't feel that at all. **[9:24] Speaker A:** I would say, if anything, methylene blue seems to be this subtle mood regulator rather than a performance booster. That's not really what I'm looking for. **[9:32] Speaker A:** I will say that one random thing that happened when I was taking the methylene blue is that I went for a trail run outside that day, and I got a really good time compared to my average. So I'm like, is this actually helping with my hemoglobin? My gestalt is probably not that. I just, like, was a random chance. Most people are just not walking around with too few electrons in their iron unless they have this disorder. So I don't know if it improved my endurance, but I think that the effects were probably pretty negligible. At the end of the day, I would say that methylene blue just doesn't impress me much. I don't like the taste. I think that it's weird that it stains your mouth blue. I feel like it's probably staining my insides of my digestive tract. And I also feel weird ingesting a chemical dye that was never really meant to be consumed by humans. **[10:17] Speaker A:** The research says that it's safe to consume. I think that it served its purpose, leading to more powerful drugs that could be used in mental health treatment these days. But at the end of the day, it's this synthetic substance that I don't want to be consuming on a daily basis. Just like I wouldn't want to be on a psychiatric medication for the rest of my life. If I'm looking for the antioxidant longevity benefits of methylene blue, I'd rather stick to natural compounds that we know work really well to include things like blueberry and curcumin from turmeric. I'd say that if you have really severe anxiety or PTSD and you want to try something like methylene blue before you get on a psychiatric medication. It's something that you could try, but be careful. And do not take methylene blue with an SSRI anti anxiety medication because it could cause serotonin syndrome, which is pretty nasty. **[11:05] Speaker A:** I would take it for a week or two and see if you feel any better. I just didn't feel well while I was taking it. My week and a half experiment just didn't yield any results to make me want to take a synthetic substance that might be staining my insides. So I just stopped it. Basically, if there are some of you out there that think that I needed to take it longer for like a month or more to see the ultimate benefits. Be sure to leave comments below. I'd love to hear your feedback. Maybe I just need to take it longer, but there's so many other options there. Like if I'm trying to prevent Alzheimer's dementia, I'm going to use my neurovisor and other light flickering devices to help turn on the immune system of my brain to help clear out plaques, and I'd rather take natural antioxidants from nature. **[11:44] Speaker A:** Speaking of antioxidant supplements, I've formulated a supplement line with natural compounds that you can take without getting a blue tongue like Methylene blue. So if you want to see my list of supplements that I'm taking, go down to the description and click that link to see my list. And my Tech4Psych supplements should be out in a month or so. Now if you want to see a biohacking method that I really prefer and just shot my brain performance metrics through the roof, check this video here and I'll see you on the other side.