In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Scott Sherr to take a deep dive into methylene blue, mitochondrial function, and where the truth lies between online hype and fear. We talk through how methylene blue acts as a redox cycler in the mitochondria, how dosing differs for mitochondrial support versus antimicrobial use, and why high doses or poorly labeled liquid droppers can cause problems. Dr. Sherr also shares how he’s used methylene blue with athletes for recovery and endurance, including timing, half-life, and practical ranges he sees most often. We cover how mitochondrial health connects to energy, mood, focus, stress physiology, and recovery, plus resources from Transcriptions and the Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMe/HOPe) framework. Sponsors: TROScriptions TX: https://troscriptions.com/?rfsn=9054607.066ddde&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=9054607.066ddde CODE: DRMIKE
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Scott Sherr to take a deep dive into methylene blue, mitochondrial function, and where the truth lies between online hype and fear. We talk through how methylene blue acts as a redox cycler in the mitochondria, how dosing differs for mitochondrial support versus antimicrobial use, and why high doses or poorly labeled liquid droppers can cause problems.
Dr. Sherr also shares how he’s used methylene blue with athletes for recovery and endurance, including timing, half-life, and practical ranges he sees most often. We cover how mitochondrial health connects to energy, mood, focus, stress physiology, and recovery, plus resources from Transcriptions and the Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMe/HOPe) framework.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle performance, improved body composition, do all of it in a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today in the podcast, got my buddy Dr. Scott Cher. We're talking all about all the wonderful stuff he is doing.
Primarily more on the side of methylene blue mitochondrial adaptations. Uh, health and a real wide range of stuff. Uh, I've gotten a lot of questions about methylene blue, and I've been looking at the research a fair amount over the last three to four years. But, uh, Dr. Scott has done many deep dives, um, into it.
Uh, he is a board certified internal medicine physician, leading expert in hyperbaric oxygen therapy, mitochondrial health, and cutting edge performance optimization. He's the founder of Integrative hbo, where he trains clinicians around the [00:01:00] world and the use of hyperbaric therapy, recovery, longevity, and complex medical conditions.
He's also the chief medical officer over at Transcriptions company that's focused on offering novel, rapidly acting Neutropic formulations and some really super interesting stuff. Like I said, today we're talking about, uh, methylene Blue, which he has a big background in. And he officially completed his medical training at Temple University School of Medicine and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital right now.
He continues to educate clinicians, lots of public speaking, consulting, podcast, appearances and everything else. So I think I really enjoy the conversation today. Like I said, it's primarily on the compound methylene blue, since I feel like there's a lot of misinformation online. It appears to be either.
Something horrible you should never ingest, or the thing that's going to save you from [00:02:00] all of the world's ills. And like most things, it's probably somewhere in between. So we talked with Dr. Scott about that. If you want more stuff for me, you can check out my link down below to get onto the daily newsletter that has all the great information, completely free.
So sign up there below. Uh, make sure to check out all of Dr. Scott's wonderful. Stuff he is got going on. I'll put a link also to transcriptions, which I've been using now for a little while and it's been great. Got some of my, uh, private one-on-one clients testing some stuff out also. So you can check them out at the link below.
FYI is and affiliate link, so just assume I make some denaro off of that. But the main reason I wanted to have Dr. Scott Cher on here is to. Talk about some of those formulations, specifically methylene blue and do more of a, a deep dive for everyone here. So without further ado, enjoy this podcast with Dr.
Scott Cher. [00:03:00]
I.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Scott. How are you?
Dr Scott Sherr: It's good to be here, Mike. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. Um, the topic today is one that, it's interesting how I find topics come in waves. I first heard of methylene Blue. God, it's probably maybe eight or 10 years ago. And the first time I heard about it I was like, what? You know, and you do probably what everyone else does.
Dr Scott Sherr: Sure.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You Google it. I'm like, fishbowl cleaner. What the hell? I'm not taking fishbowl clean. This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard of in my life.
Dr Scott Sherr: Sounds like that.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And then you kind of,
Dr Scott Sherr: and it's
Dr Mike T Nelson: dismiss it.
Dr Scott Sherr: You don't take fish tank cleaner, everybody listening,
Dr Mike T Nelson: please don't do this. Yes, no, we're not recommending that.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah, please don't
Dr Mike T Nelson: whatsoever.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And then I started to hear more about, it probably started maybe around five years ago. Mm-hmm. And then through, you know, transcriptions as the first company I saw that, that had it out as a product and you know, following your stuff and Dr. Ted for a while and we were saying off air.
Dr. Ted's one of those guys where I hear him talk and I'm like, [00:04:00] I don't know, that sounds kind of crazy. And then I'm off doing my own research on a whole bunch of stuff and then a couple months later come back and I'm like, son, a bitch. That guy was right again. You know, I was
Dr Scott Sherr: like, welcome to my world.
You know, working with him for this many years. Yeah, Greg. Exactly.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So how did you get involved in Methylene Blue and what, and we'll kind of just, just start there. How was your journey into it? Because I'm always interested in how other people find out about things and how it shows up on their radar.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. So I mean, for me, I guess like the backstory, I'm an internal medicine physician. I grew up pretty outta the box as the son of a chiropractor. I did conventional medical training though, uh, with the sort of high minded idea of trying to create an integrative practice once I finished all my training and then, you know, multiple to sort of, you know, chapters later.
Um, I first was involved in hyperbaric oxygen therapy for many years. Um, I created an integrated practice around that. I met Dr. Ted in 2017. His name's Dr. Ted Tso. He's this. [00:05:00] Amazing practitioner physician, he's multiple boarded just kinda like the polymath, brilliant kind of guy. And he had a framework that he, that he actually created called Health Optimization Medicine and Practice, which we abbreviate Home Hope.
And that's, um, home hope.org is the website. It's a nonprofit organization that trains practitioners on a foundational framework that looks to optimize health rather than treat disease, take things out of a, sort of an organ based more to a cellular based, more from an energy metabolism side of things and optimal ranges.
So like optimizing you not to be normal for your age, but but to be optimal between 21 and 30 years of age for hormones and gut and networks of nutrients and et cetera. So we got involved, I got involved with Dr. Ted back in that timeframe as we were kinda developing the nonprofit and the training for practitioners.
You don't have to be licensed by the way, you can be a non-licensed provider and get training in this as well. Oh, very cool. That's awesome. Yes, you could be, yeah, gimme an md. You can be a dc you could be a health coach, you could be a fitness instructor. It doesn't matter because. As you know now, Mike, things have gotten so much more democratized as far as what you can do, even [00:06:00] personally, go get your own, own labs done or whatever.
But having a good framework for all this was really the key and understanding what those markers look like. And so out of that nonprofit and understanding the framework, when you're optimizing somebody's health, it doesn't happen overnight. This is something that happens over months to years, depending on where they are and where, where they want to go.
And of course, the path never ends. It's just, you know, a path. Right. And so as a result of that nonprofit, understanding the framework, understanding the path, well, we know there's a lot of roadblocks along the way, and one of those roadblocks significantly is obviously gonna be energy. Energy and metabolism.
Detoxification, inflammation. And. This is where Dr. Ted was start was, he's always like this. I mean, since AI has come around in the last several years, it's been crazy to see what this guy can do. But even before this he was always scouring papers, scouring research and literature. And as you were probably looking, like you said, you know, 10 years ago when you first started learning about Methylene Blue, he was learning about it then as well.
Seeing that was being studied for things like Parkinson's and traumatic brain injury and [00:07:00] stroke. And then of course the bodybuilding fitness world is always doing things faster and before everybody else, because they're always looking for that leg up. But until we came out with a company in 2020, you'd have to find it from like an industrial supplier or a, a chemical manufacturer.
And that's almost always gonna be contaminated with heavy metals like Lead, mercury Academy of an arsenic. But Ted was looking at some papers also for people that were sort of. Healthy aging, um, and having, uh, methylene blue GI given to them and then having some MRI scans of their brain afterwards and looking at function of like attention, memory, uh, learning and skill acquisition.
And so we basically decided as a result of that, we wanted to use Methylene Blue in some of our products. And we, again, we were very early here. This is February, 2020, we launched the company transcriptions and um, we were the first commercial. Provider of methylene blue outside of going to a chemistry lab and, and buying it directly, which is still sketchy, by the way.
I wouldn't recommend. Oh yeah, I would not. Because that is [00:08:00] where, as you said, fish tank cleaner. So actually it doesn't clean the fish tank clean. Uh, the fish tank itself actually cleans the fish. It's an antiseptic. It's an antimicrobial, and that's why you use it in fish tank cleaner to actually treat the fish itself.
And so it's got a long storied history, which we can talk about. But in essence, that's how we came to understand that wow, if it's working in the mitochondria, because that's what the research was showing. And like the statistics are crazy, Mike, like 94% of US adults are metabolically unhealthy, which corresponds to mitochondrial dysfunction.
Then we knew that we had something here that could potentially be very, very effective, even if it was a very blue, very blue dye, not from the earth. Like lots of controversy as we now know. But there's, you know, over the last six years now, we've just seen significant power using this particular compound.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think that's what it seems like if people find something that's, in my air quotes, natural, they're more accepting of it, even though there's all sorts of natural stuff that can kill you.
Dr Scott Sherr: Of
Dr Mike T Nelson: course,
Dr Scott Sherr: yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But things that are [00:09:00] industrial or chemicals, and then you, you see the color and it's like ridiculously bright blue, and then you do the history.
You're like, oh, it's a, it's a dye for all sorts of other things. Like it has all the sort of hallmarks, at least in the. Bodybuilding, fitness, natural world, probably not bodybuilding. They don't seem even care so much about that.
Dr Scott Sherr: They don't care about natural as much in the
Dr Mike T Nelson: bodybuilding, natural, they don't really care.
But everyone else is kind of like, ah, yeah, I don't know. When you're telling me this is a, a good thing and it's turning my mouth blue, I don't know about you. Weird people.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just to reflect on that, like I, I grew up the son of a chiropractor. Okay. And he was like a militant against the man, you know, the machine of conventional medicine.
Sure. For many, for many years. When, when, when he first started practicing. But over the years he realized as many people that are listening really do understand like. We live in modern society. We live with bad food, bad lighting, bad air, bad people. And we don't live ancestrally where we have beautiful sunlight and beautiful food and water.
[00:10:00] And so sometimes we need synthetic things to help us, you know? And in addition, so like a good example, if you're taking insulin right now as a diabetic, that is synthetic. It's not something that, you know, that's been made from the ground. Yes, it's a natural chemical, but it's also been made, it's been thin synthesized, right?
But if you have an infection and you have cellulitis on your leg, like a, like a skin infection, and you don't get antibiotics for that, you can die. Right? But you would've died 200 years ago, or even a hundred years ago, really, if you didn't have antibiotics to help you. And then not everything and everything that's.
Natural, as you said, is good for us either. Mike, you just said like eu for, from my, in my experience, I remember being in medical school and watching people die of liver failure because they forage for the wrong mushrooms. Right? Oh yeah. And so you have to be super careful what you're foraging for out there.
So I think it's, it's more of a, a conversation regarding just kinda where we are as a society, where we are from a, just from a metabolically healthy perspective, which is not very good. And then under then I think then the conversation's like, okay, so now that we're living in this very synthetic world, [00:11:00] we wanna do as many things naturally as we can.
And, and my father, for example, as I was mentioning, he sends people to the hospital. He's a ton of methylene blue in clinical practice now for mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, uh, along COVID and other sort of autoimmune issues and things, and sees fantastic benefit. So he's kind of come around over the years to understand that there is just a time and a place for everything.
We just have to be, you know, acknowledging that, that that's the case. I think.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And it seems like mitochondria are all the rage now, which I have a whole issue. It's for good reason and I like the discussion, but I think a lot of times people miss the big picture on what is actually most helpful for that.
Um, but which would be shocker aerobic training and training first.
Dr Scott Sherr: Of
course.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Um, again, not to say there's not things that could be beneficial for it. So in terms of me, uh, methylene blue how is it actually acting on the mitochondria? What is it doing? Because I think there's a lot of controversy there and I know the research, [00:12:00] at least in my interpretation, is rather clear, but it can be a little bit fuzzy on, on some of the edges.
So if someone is consuming mi no methylene blue mitochondria wise, like what is it really doing there?
Dr Scott Sherr: So what we think, we actually, we have a pretty good understanding, as you said, Mike is like, there's some really good research that's been done. This compound has been around since the 1870s, 1 8, 7. Yeah.
It's an old, old compound zero. Right? So it's not 1970s, 1870s. Right. And so it's initial chapter was an antimicrobial, it's higher doses of it, about a milligram per kilogram, up to two milligrams per kilogram usually is really your good antimicrobial dose. That's somewhere between what, 50 to a hundred milligrams, depending on your ideal body weight.
But we're really talking about here with mitochondrial, uh, perspective is actually focused on much lower doses of this. And in, in what's happening there is that they figured out in like the 1950s and sixties that if you put mi, put methylene blue on a cell and [00:13:00] put it looking under a microscope, you would see that.
The methylene blue would concentrate in the mitochondria of the cell. Okay. And if I, when I was in chemistry class, in college at UCLA, we, this is one of the things we did in chemistry class that I remember is using methylene blue as a stain to look at the mitochondria specifically. We now know what's happening in there, which is that methylene blue is a very interesting role.
Called a redox. Cycler, meaning that it has the capacity to both help with electron flow and electron donation to the electron transport chain and the mitochondria, and at the same time, it can work directly and indirectly as an antioxidant. So the quick and dirty of this is that in our electron transport chain, the part of our mitochondria, we have four protein complexes we need to eat.
Fat and carbohydrates so that we can flip off electrons from our food and bring them to this electron transport chain. They're carried by NADH and F-A-D-H-F-N-A-D, and F-A-D-N-A-D is all the rage. And, you know, that's another question mm-hmm. We can talk about, but but what [00:14:00] happens is that these NADH and FADH carriers flip electrons to your electron transport chain.
The problem is, is that. There are so many of us out there that have dysfunctional complexes, don't have the capacity to actually do this. Uh, effectively as we get older, our NAD supply does go down. That is true. But there are so many toxins and stresses to our mitochondria, to these protein complexes that make it extremely difficult for us to make energy.
I mean, one of the most common things that we see is, for example, is, you know, glyphosate exposure. So glyphosate is, you know, from Roundup, it is a chemical that destroys complex one in the mitochondria. Hmm. So if you don't have the capacity to make energy from complex one, you're relegated to complex two, which is okay, but you don't have as much capacity to make as much energy.
Right. And so, and then if you have, there's other things that can do this. There's toxins in their environment. There's medications that people take on a regular basis. There's certainly other aspects, uh, that can cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which I'll talk about in a minute. But. [00:15:00] The complex is themself.
If they're not working very well and you can't donate electrons effectively to complex one and complex two, the whole system starts breaking down. So what methylene blue can do in those cases actually is it can actually compensate for that by actually donating electrons further down the chain of protein complexes to help you bypass those dysfunctional areas.
And then what I like to think about it here is like, well, it buys you time. It buys you time to start understanding what's happening and why it's happening, and then remediating that. So optimizing your vitamins, your minerals, your nutrients, your detoxification pathways, like that's all really, really important.
But it takes time to do that. It's not gonna happen immediately where. We know that the, so the prime example of this Mike, is actually cyanide poisoning.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
Dr Scott Sherr: Cyanide destroys complex four in the mitochondria, and if complex four doesn't work, there's nothing that's gonna work there. Yeah, yeah. You're
Dr Mike T Nelson: POed.
Big
Dr Scott Sherr: deal. You're posed. Exactly, exactly. That's a great Minnesotan way of saying it, right? Yeah. And so that, what would happen. If you didn't have methylene blue around, is it, you would die. Right? But if you have methane blue around, what it can do [00:16:00] is that, is this, this sort of like these ninja moves that it does by allowing you to bind oxygen to the methylene blue, creating hydrogen peroxide, throwing hydrogen peroxide across the, the mitochondrial membrane, allowing that to be the electron sink for your electrons going through complex one, two, and three.
So it's, and then you have the capacity, still make some energy through some of the rotors that are still working, even if complex four isn't working. So, um, I know that's kinda like deep biochemistry, but Yeah, no, it's good. But the, the real, the real key there is that it has, it's an antidote because it, it buys you time, right?
Certainly if you had main, if you maintain cyanide exposure, you're gonna die regardless. But if you had a cyanide exposure, you're still maintaining some energy metabolism, even if you don't have your complex four working, which is like. Pretty amazing. Right? So, so on that side of the, on, on the, on that side of the coin, which is energy production and compensating for energy and for the complex is not working very well.
Methane blue's fantastic. And in addition into that, it also works as an antioxidant. So that even if you're making, if you have a lot of, uh, oxidative [00:17:00] stress, if you have a lot of we have, you have a lot of decreased capacity to neutralize the oxidative stress of making energy. 'cause you know, when we make energy, which is a TP, we also make water, carbon dioxide, and, and reactive oxygen species.
Um, those R os are okay, they're good, we need them in small amounts. Um, this is what exercise is good for in others, if you have the capacity to have an antioxidant response. But if you don't, then the system gets really like, filled up with garbage, like your city that's not collecting waste anymore. You see the garbage just kind of pile up and pile up and it starts, you know, smelling and everything else.
Right? And so what methane book can mostly do here is work directly as an antioxidant. So, um, that's why it has the capacity, like, which is very unusual to do both, which is mm-hmm. Very few compounds that I'm aware of are able to do.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So one of my little pet theories, and I can't find any data to support this, is that, and it's mostly anecdotal.
I've had some people I'd say are hyper responders to methylene blue, meaning like, they're like, oh my God, this was like the greatest thing you ever did. This is so amazing. I feel so [00:18:00] much better. And I've had other people who are like me, I don't know, I don't, I can't really notice any difference. And my hypothesis is that the hyper responders typically, I would say, are the people who have worse metabolic health.
That like exactly what you said, it's kind pinch hitting for some stuff in the mitochondria, and it is temporarily making them better and able to do things, which is great.
Dr Scott Sherr: Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But also in my head, that's also what you said too, that this is a, a temporary thing. So I'm viewing this as, okay, this might be a way to help with energy, help with, you know, Ross, all these other things.
But we need to also continue to dig deeper and figure out, okay, what's really going on that, that this is like a, I don't wanna say a bandaid, but it's kind of a way, like you said, to buy time. Mm-hmm. And not the effects of well just stay on methylene blue the rest of your life. Like, it's a, it's also an indicator and a bridge to, okay, we're gonna take the detour for a [00:19:00] while, but eventually we want to get back to taking the main highway.
And this is just buying us time to figure it out and energy and sort of currency that we can play with to actually be able to do the things we need to do.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. I, that's really, I really appreciate your, your perspective there and your framing the way I would, I would just kind of add here is that Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: please.
Dr Scott Sherr: Absolutely. It's like if you have 300 pounds to lose, right? If you're, as soon as you start exercising, you're gonna start shedding weight compared to somebody that has the five or 10 pounds to lose at the end of their process of trying to get to their ideal body weight. So there's absolutely a correlation in my clinical practice where the people that have the most.
Requirements and support needed, they definitely see a benefit at much lower doses of methylene Blue for sure. Right. Um, absolutely that's the case. What I would also just say though, like in addition, like on the, there's an edge case, which is an endurance in athletics, which is kind of interesting because that was my next
Dr Mike T Nelson: question.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah, yeah. Because, and so I can go there if you want. Yeah, please. In a minute. But but before I go there, maybe I'm just gonna [00:20:00] round out the other aspect of is that, is that I do agree with you that, um, my goal with my patients always is to get them on support that helps them now so that we can get them across the next several, you know, markers on their development of optimizing their health.
Right? So if you give them a little more energy, then they can start walking. If you give them a little more focus and a little bit of brain power, then they can stop yelling at their kids and have a better relationship with their spouse and they start taking their supplements and they start changing their diet and, you know, so it's like a, we talk about exercise being like your domino effect.
Yeah. Like exercise being a cornerstone habit. I always like that idea. Like you, you start exercising. Then you want to eat better, you wanna sleep better, all those things. I almost methylene booth feels like a cornerstone compound for me for a lot of my patients because it becomes that thing that, that we can sort of add in, uh, your other aspect of it, which was, you know, is it a bandaid per se?
Like, does it. I get this question all the time. Is it, is it something where if I stop taking methylene blue, am I gonna go back to the way I felt before? And I often tell people, well, it depends on what else you're doing, right? Yeah. If you're just [00:21:00] taking methylene blue and you stop it, like, these people always ask like, are you gonna get dependent on it, right?
And I'm like, no, you're not dependent on it. But if you're not also looking at how you're gonna optimize your physiology, otherwise you might get some benefit that maintains after you stop methylene blue, but it's not gonna be, you know, likely where you're gonna want to be. Um, it, there is some evidence that methylene blue can improve, uh, complex four function and also enhance the number of complex four proteins on its own.
Actually, some Francisco Gonzalez Lima, who's a researcher down at University of Texas, Austin, has done some of this work in Alzheimer's models in animals and mice. Um, so it's, you know, human studies haven't been done. There's also some evidence it does help with mitochondrial biogenesis, along with sort of optimizing, um, endogenous nitric oxide production as well.
So. So I think there's some evidence there, but it's not what I hang my hat on, you know, with patients. I mean, I, I'm always saying, this is what I'm starting with you now, so that we can help you along your road and along your path to health optimization. And then hopefully over the long term you need it much less and you're only using it when you [00:22:00] need more help.
Like you have more mitochondrial stress, like you're going on an airplane or you're doing, you know, you have a long day at work. Or you're gonna really have a lot of brain power. Um, or you're gonna be doing, you know, some of the endurance and exercise work, which we can talk about too.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So do you think it is an ergogenic, like something that would increase exercise performance?
And if so, mechanistically, is that doing something at the mitochondria and these are more, we'll say, generally healthy people or is it helping with the raw production because we know, especially in, uh, high volume endurance training, for example, has been well documented. You just have a lot of more, you know, free radicals that are spun off, which again.
It isn't necessarily bad. A lot of those service signaling to right trigger downstream adaptations, but you know, you don't want a ton of 'em running around and causing a muck everywhere either.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yes. I've been using Methylene Blue now for a number of years in athletes, and I've been using it kinda on both sides of the coin, which is on the performance side and on the recovery side, right?
Mm-hmm. [00:23:00] Because, because of just what you just described here, you need to create enough enough hermetic stress on the system to be able to shift. The epigenetics and shift, you know, mitochondrial biogenesis and all the things that you mentioned so that you, you know, build back. But oftentimes what people are doing is that they're, they're not doing the recovery, right?
They're not getting enough of that relaxation recovery period. And then that rated oxidative stretch just builds up and builds up and builds up and builds up. So I think that's like, that's a no-brainer for me on the, on the methylene blue side because I've seen it, uh, with athletes that are, that are over training.
If I give them just lower doses of methylene blue, two or three hours after they finish their training, their HRV goes up. When they sleep, their sleep scores improve overall. Um, they're, they're recovered faster 'cause they're getting more of that energy and detox capacity. Um, so I, I'm, it's a very common thing for me to use it that way.
Um, I use it in combination of other modalities like. Like, like mild hyperbaric therapy, for example, is a nice combination. So mild hyperbarics combined with methylene blue, maybe some red light exposure because red light and methylene [00:24:00] blue also synergize, but red light around the 680 nanometer wavelength.
Actually dot donates photo photonic energy photonic electrons really to complex force specifically. And then obviously methylene boot can do the same. So there's a very synergistic effect. And, and Francisco Gonzalez Lima actually has a paper on this and looking at Alzheimer's models. So I think that's almost a no-brainer for me.
Like if I have patient people that are. Training, especially if they're doing like with after like their races, after their actual, you know? Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: It's a big competition. Big
Dr Scott Sherr: competition. Super high
Dr Mike T Nelson: volume. Super high intensity.
Dr Scott Sherr: That, I mean, that, that's a no brainer for me. Like that's why, like we talk about don't use ice after, you know, training, but use ice after doing something like that.
Right? Because you know that, that you're trying to, you're trying to clamp down on that inflammation 'cause it's just too much for the system. Right? So I think for that, I think it's pretty well understood that you want to get recovery stuff going as soon as possible, but. When it comes down to, you know, the endurance side of things, um, there was an interesting study that was done on on animals on dogs that looked at lactate [00:25:00] threshold for animals using methylene blue.
And they found that they reached their lactate threshold later if they had methylene blue on round. And this is around, and this is because of what you're describing here, which is one of the things you just described, which is it's mocking up, it's, it's mopping up ROS Ross, right? But it's also maintaining aerobic capacity for longer because it has the capacity to actually be the electron sink if needed.
So if there's not as much oxygen around methylene, but can become that electron sink as well. And so basically the whole complex chain of electrons and through the proteins continues to work 'cause you have methylene boo around. And so what I've seen, at least in endurance athletes, and I've worked with a number of cyclists, now I have one guy, um, that's, uh, he's, you know, he's a very good cyclist.
He's done, he's been on a number of the big teams. He won't tell everybody else that he's using methylene blue because he's noticed that his aerobic output does go up significantly, uh, when he's training with it. I did a, [00:26:00] I work with a guy. That did the Leadville Ultra Marathon, 100 Mile Air here in Colorado where, where I live.
And, uh, we were giving him 32 milligrams of methylene blue every four hours. And he cut his, and he cut his time off by three hours from his year before. Um,
Dr Mike T Nelson: was that acutely like before the event, or was that as part of his training leading
Dr Scott Sherr: up to it? Well, we, we, well we did it as part of his training to get him used to it.
Um, but not every day. Not every, not every, not when he, not, when he wasn't doing huge amounts like we wanted to make sure that he made, got his aerobic capacity up. Um, but during his final leg, leg of training and also during his race, he did the 30, 32 milligrams every four hours. Um, and, and that's the deal, right?
So it's a bit of a balance when it comes to endurance because, and even there's some interest. I have a friend of mine that does a lot of like work in the anaerobic training side and what, at least what he's noticed with methylene blue is that. What he feels, and he's very in tune. We haven't done studies on this, which is that he feels that he can recover in between sets at a higher heart rate [00:27:00] compared to what he was able to do before, after going down to a lower heart rate, before we could do another set where he felt like his sympathetic reserve was high enough, um, that he could, you know, maintain his output on a, on another set of, of exercise.
So that's an interesting one. I think that has to do with, you know, what we're talking about here as well. That's, I haven't quite understood the entire mechanisms behind that quite yet. Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: it's probably a higher aerobic output. Right? So he's shifting to more, A higher percentage of that is aerobic, which is allowing him to probably feel not as taxed per se, I guess I would say maybe.
Dr Scott Sherr: I think that's what it is. Right? It's, it's, I think that's what he's feeling is that it almost becomes like he can do both at the same time on some level. Right. Right. Which is unusual. Usually you have to do aerobic or anaerobic training, but he thinks he can actually do like a little bit of both. Um, because he can maintain a higher heart rate while he's actually doing anaerobic work and still have the same output on the anaerobic side that he would've if he.
Um, he would've had to have a lower heart rate to have the same output in a typical scenario. Right. So, with [00:28:00] all of this though, I just wanna be clear, I don't think somebody should be taking methylene blue every day when they're training. I think it's something that should be used, you know, periodically.
Right. And as a way to maximize output to ma you know, to maximize capacity. I, I just did an interview a couple days ago with, uh, with a guy that does a lot of Juujitsu training. Mm-hmm. And he does, and he does a lot of, um, you know, power Watts training on a bike as well. And he noticed when he goes and he uses Methylene blue, that's when he actually can reach his peak.
He can get to his peak using methylene blue. Um, like, like 30 or 40. Was it milliwatts? I can't remember the exact uh, the exact, uh, unit, but
Dr Mike T Nelson: it could be Watts actually, depending on what he is doing. Most
Dr Scott Sherr: likely. Yeah, probably Watts. Probably Watts actually. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm, yeah, probably Watts. He said he needed get 20 or 30 watts higher using methylene blue when he is got it on board.
So I think for like. For really kinda getting to the edge of your capacity. I think methylene is very interesting here. And, and then also I think it's very interesting, um, as something to use for like competitions and things like that. Um, because I think it can be, you know, helpful in those [00:29:00] capacities too.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And so for the genic performance, it appears to be that that is an acute effect. Meaning if you, obviously you'd wanna test this and everything else, but you could use it on the day of the event or the day of your testing and you would see a benefit on that day. Right? Right. 'cause we know some of the compounds like beta alanine, creatine, monohydrate.
They are beneficial, but they're stored in the muscles. So it takes a while for us to saturate the muscle or other things like caffeine, you know, 30 to 60 minutes you have an acute effect. So methylene blue appears to be more on the acute effect spectrum for performance enhancement, correct?
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. So the, the half-life of methylene blue orally is about four to six hours.
Mm. The, the peak effect is gonna be around two hours or so.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, okay.
Dr Scott Sherr: And so you It's certainly an acute effect and we, that's how I typically would use it. Sometimes I, what I'll do is dose it twice a day in people twice a day, depending on what they're using at, [00:30:00] for. Uh, sometimes I'll do it every four hours, like the guy doing the ultra marathon here in Colorado.
That's the Leadville race for those that are following at home, um, which
Dr Mike T Nelson: is a long, long, uh, long event.
Dr Scott Sherr: It's a long, a long event. A hundred miles is a long time. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a very different. Kind of stress on the body compared to most people. But I do use it in people that are, you know, have chronic complex medical illness that have, you know, brain fog and concentration problems and pain and things like that, and they find that they have a benefit at, they take it at seven o'clock in the morning, but then they start waning that, that, that, that effect around 12 or one until we take it at another dose.
Then I typically don't recommend taking it too close to bedtime because what, what also is important to know about methylene blue is that it does have what's called a monoamine oxidase inhibition effect, which means. It increases norepinephrine in serotonin and at higher levels, like around a hundred milligrams or so, or above of methylene blue, which is, again, not common to use in most si situations.
It also have a dopaminergic effect as well. Um, it's dose dependent, so lower doses will have a small amount of [00:31:00] serotonergic and norepinephrine, uh, effect, and then the higher doses you get more. So some people will feel more wakeful and have a harder time falling asleep if they take it too close to bed.
Um, but most people don't have an issue. Um, it's not a stimulant like, you know, drinking caffeine or having nicotine or something like that. You don't get a crash or like a calm down or anything like that. It's, it's really nice, like if you're pretty well optimized, Mike, and you take methylene blue, what you should feel is just more of like an elevation, just like, just a rise in your capacity.
It shouldn't be like, like, holy crap, this is amazing. Like, that's not typically what people feel. Some people do have that effect. Rarely that are pretty optimized. Otherwise it's just like, wow. I feel just like I can go for longer. My energy's higher and sustained and not, you know, not jittery, not, you know, not stimulated kind of feel For me, oftentimes it's like I look back at the day and I go, oh, I, I didn't get tired in the middle of the day.
I didn't, you know, yell at my kids when they came home, when they asked me a question, when I was on a podcast or, or something, right? Like, I had, you have more capacity, you know, [00:32:00] mentally and as you know, Mike, I think, although I had this argument with one lady Gabrielle Lyons about where the most mitochondria are per cell.
But the most mitochondria percell in reserve. Definitely the musculoskeletal tissue, right? Yeah. 'cause you have to have it all prepared in case you have to run away from the proverbial saber tooth tiger deal. But the most mitochondria percell are actually in a reproductive organs. And so eggs are the most, and then sper.
That makes
Dr Mike T Nelson: sense.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. Sperm is not far behind. The brain is next though, right? So people that mostly have mitochondrial dysfunction, um, we know fertility rates are going, you know, kaput and, uh, we see this across the board. In addition though, mental health disorder is brain complaints of brain fog and energy.
This is like the number one complaint that most people will have when they go to the doctors. They don't have enough energy anymore. Um, energy and anxiety. Actually those are the two major ones. You know, talking to my c my colleagues around the world. Number one, complaints. Uh, they, they go, depending on the time of year and what's going on in the world, it's either not enough energy or [00:33:00] anxious, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
Dr Scott Sherr: We even know anxiety itself, depression, these can be related to mitochondrial dysfunction and not related, you know, to a biochemical issue. We, we, I mean, we now know that
Dr Mike T Nelson: because Palmer's got a whole book on that. That's super fascinating.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. I mean, the metabolic perspective of this is huge, right?
Mm-hmm. People on ketogenic diets and seeing their depression go away. Um, and we, I mean, we certainly know that. Depression is not a serotonin deficiency. I mean, we, when I was in medical school, that's what I learned is that you were giving people antidepressants with SSRIs because they were low in serotonin and that's why they were depressed.
But no, they're not actually, there's no lower levels of serotonin in people with depression and people that don't have depression. Um, they're mitochondria and that's the big piece here. And also their GABA levels. Interesting. The ga, it's a gamma butyric acid. Our, our primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain.
That is really where, um, there's more correlations with depression, but in the end it's really a mitochondrial issue is what it comes down to for the most part.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's why for years I got so much crap for this. I [00:34:00] was like, okay, so mechanistically, SSRIs within hours are actually affecting serotonin.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yep.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Like, that was pretty well shown. That's been shown for long ass time. And I'm like, okay. How come all the clients are referred out to psychiatrists? Were stating, well, you know, you may not feel anything. We gotta wait at least, you know, three to eight weeks. And I'm like, well, hold on a second. If you're telling me that serotonin is the effect, this drug is clearly changing serotonin levels within hours, then you're telling 'em you gotta wait like three weeks to see if there's any.
Like, it just never made any darn sense to me at all whatsoever.
Dr Scott Sherr: I mean, mechanistically, it doesn't, right? Like if it was a serotonin effect, then you would see it immediately, right? Right. I mean that, that, I mean, you were way before your time, Mike. And I mean, I remember when I was in, I was my first year out of residency, internal medicine residency, and I was working in a primary care office in Baltimore at the time.
And the doctor that I was working with, he's been in practice for, you know, 30 years. Anxiety, [00:35:00] SSRIs, depression, SSRIs, fatigue, SSRIs, like everybody got them, right? It was just what you did. This is, this is in 2000, what was it? 10, you know, 11. So this is not that long ago. Right. And so it's just amazing. To me, I mean, there's been a lot of really great stuff that's come out over ser with regarding the serotonin as well and how it has an effect on the mitochondria over time as well.
And it's not a good one by the way, right? Having higher levels of, of serotonin. So it's a very interesting marker or you know, obviously neurotransmitter on its own right. But certainly the way I think about this, and I know many people now do, is like, look, this is, there's a mitochondrial stress that's going on here.
And the question is, why could it be something that was sort of top down or bottom up? Meaning was it top down like you had a severe traumatic childhood, or you had a severe death in the family, or something that, like at a car accident or something like that. Like that, that's more like a top down kind of approach, right?
And you also have like a bottom up approach, which is a toxin in your environment, right? Uh, an infection, a medication that you [00:36:00] took that, you know, caused significant stress on the mitochondria itself. Either way, you end up in this place where the mitochondria aren't functioning very well. And it's very important though, to understand you have to approach it from a, like a mitochondrial, you know, regeneration perspective, how you're gonna do that short term and long term.
This is where, again, methylene blue can be in the short term especially, but then also understanding that that sympathetic aspect of it is very important too. Why are, um, in the sense of like, if you've had this outside influence that's caused the mitochondrial function that needs to be addressed in some way.
Um, knowing also, which, which is also a very interesting point, is that you can still get in that sympathetic place, that sympathetic fight or flight space, even without an outside influence. It could just, because your mitochondria under so under so much stress that they go into flip into something called the cell danger response, which is now you're not making enough energy at all, but you're putting out signals to try to make more and you get stressed because of that.
And then it becomes this whole thing that I call the sympathetic spiral of doom, which is, you know, not a fun place to be. [00:37:00]
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and those people in my experience historically report very A DHD like symptoms, even if they don't have a formal diagnosis, because they are, if you think about what happens if you just crank up your sympathetics, like you literally have a shorter attention span.
You become hypervigilant, you're like constantly scanning for threats. Like you present everything that, that A DHD would present. And so I sometimes think there's a little bit of confusion there. Not to say there's not overlap. There's a hundred percent overlap. Um, but if I do like the heart rate variability, resting heart rate, respiratory rate, if all those are wacky, I'm like, okay, let's, I'm not your psychiatrist, but let's work on these things.
Atory time, they get better. If all those are great and your aerobic base is amazing. Okay. Yeah. Now I'm definitely gonna refer you out because I'm, I don't think it's more on the physiology side. There might be something else, you know, going on, like you mentioned.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah, that's a, I I love that [00:38:00] you mentioned A DHD 'cause I think, you know, boomer and I, boomer Anderson's the CEO of transcriptions.
I know he interviewed many you many years ago for his podcast. Yeah. We've, we've talked about this, we've talked about, you know, how it's such an important question, which is can you focus because you can't focus because of a DH ADHD maybe? Or is there something else going on there, um, that's really causing something more physiologically.
Right. And I mean, part of this is the external environment, where're just being slammed with phones and notifications. Oh, for sure. Things like that. And I think that's a big part of it, but I like that you mentioned that. 'cause I also mentioned a couple other things for people to watch out for that, where they're kind of in the sympathetic spiral and they may not realize it.
So if you're feeling like you're tired, but you're wired, you can't get to, you know, you can't get to bed at night if you feel like your mood is kind of up and down throughout the day. You're not really able to stabilize it. That's also a potential indicator, a big one on the, on the physical side. Uh, Mike, and I'm sure you could probably relate and reflect on this, I'd be interested in your opinion, was like, is on the recovery side, like if you're mm-hmm.
Doing things and you realize that you're just not recovering as well, it's taking [00:39:00] you three or four days to recover from exercise, or if you're go on an airplane and you know, you can't recover for three or four days or longer because, uh, you know, you have more mitochondrial stress, you're, you have very little sympathetic reserve, you know, you're not gonna see the, the recovery on the other side of it.
I'm sure you, you see that, I mean, that's probably why you're measuring some of those baseline, uh, metrics that you mentioned too.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I usually, they see that recovery is severely impaired. Like if, and sometimes if they're not aware of it, I'll do horrible things to 'em, like have 'em do really. High output intensity stuff like on a, a rower or an echo bike where I'm getting an actual lot output from it.
The equipment that's easy to access, I might even have 'em do it back to back or within 48 hours and the second session is just absolute crap. And then explain to 'em that okay, it, it's not all in your head. Like
Dr Scott Sherr: right.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You physically can't repeat a hard and heavy task. Not to say you need to do this all the time.
Not to say you should train that way. Um, and then you match that with, you know, high respiratory rate, you know, poor HRV, [00:40:00] they're generally kind of, you know, twitchy. And usually if I measure their aerobic base, aerobic base is crap. Like their VO two max tends to be on the lower side almost all of the time.
Right. Because now we're back to mitochondria and the ability of your aerobic system to actually generate. Energy to when we've pushed you off homeostasis. It takes energy to get you back to homeostasis. And a lot of these people are just living so far off homeostasis and it's taking them forever to get back to where they were.
And then last thing is just whatever I can do to get them to downregulate. If it's, you know, sauna breathing, I have a shift wave device. I'm a big fan of that, which is amazing. Yeah,
Dr Scott Sherr: that's a cool one. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Anything just to get them to kind of just, just chill out. And a lot of times it's even just to have them get the sensation of it.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yes.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Um, like I've done,
Dr Scott Sherr: that is key.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I think you've talked about this too, is that I don't think Wim Hof breathing or super ventricular [00:41:00] methods are good in that instance at all, because that's pushing them sympathetic.
Dr Scott Sherr: Absolutely.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But what I will do is I may have them do. Just two or three rounds and then just get as quiet as possible.
Mm-hmm. Because now they've got that big comparison. And in that quiet space, I just want you to hang out. Now, I don't want you to do this every day, but I want you to get the sensation of what it feels like to be quiet. And I have found that that comparison, if you slam those together, they then go oh.
That's what kind of quiet feels like, oh, that's what I'm trying to get. Oh, I get it.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. So from a sympathetic perspective, that's really interesting because I, I say the same thing oftentimes, which is that what I'm trying to do to break that sympathetic spiral is to give them the experience of being in parasympathetic for once hundred percent.
Right. And, but it's interesting when you mentioned there, so you're basically overdrive them with a couple rounds of Wim Hof to get them slightly more sympathetic, but in a place where their mind gets quiet to give them their, their, the experience of what it [00:42:00] would be like if they were in a parasympathetic state.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Dr Scott Sherr: And
Dr Mike T Nelson: then
Dr Scott Sherr: I
Dr Mike T Nelson: keep, that's ing, I keep pulling back the sympathetic portion of it
Dr Scott Sherr: because that's super interesting. Yeah. If
Dr Mike T Nelson: you're also hyperventilating, you, you don't even have to worry about breathing per se for a while.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So for a lot of people, that's the first time they've ever felt. Just quiet.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. So I, I I I love that. I haven't thought of that specifically because I think what I typically think about, well, if you're downregulating somebody's nervous system, it can be very scary for them too, because for sure they're not used to having that tension, that clamp down feeling go down. So what I've used over the years is actually supplementation, using GABAergic things.
Mm-hmm. Like we have, um, we have something in transcriptions, a couple things that work on downregulating using, you know, the leveraging the GABA system. So gaba again, for those that are following at home is, is your primary breaks of your brain. It's a neurotransmitter that calms things down. And when you're stressed all the time and sympathetic all the time, you deplete gaba, depletions associated with anxiety, with depression, as I mentioned earlier, [00:43:00] and also mental health disorders, insomnia, all the things.
And so. But if you can leverage the GABA system, you can give people the experience of what it feels like to calm down the nervous system. Then they know where there is, and then they can do the breath work, they can do the yoga, they can do the sauna, they can do the, the mindfulness training and things like that.
But there's a, there's a danger here, you know, when you're bringing them down that it can be very scary because systems feel like they're shutting down for a little while until you can get them through that and then get them that feeling. The big, the big thing for, uh, that I always, I try to remind, you know, my patients as well as, as people that are listening, is that, you know, GABA itself as a supplement should not work for you.
GABA is too big of a molecule to get across into the brain if you take GABA on its own. And it works for you. This is often because your brain barrier is leaking things. Yeah. You'll
Dr Mike T Nelson: GABA test for the blood brain barrier. Yeah.
Dr Scott Sherr: You know this. Yeah. So it's almost diagnostic, right? So I've had patients over the years where they're taking GABA supplements and they're feeling quite relaxed, and then we optimize their blood-brain [00:44:00] barrier by typically optimizing their gut.
It's typically a leaky gut causing a, a systemic inflammation that, you know, the collateral here is the blood-brain barrier. And then as a result, they get. You know, this is not just the, the, the classic is reactivation of Lyme, of mold, of EBV, of these other things. This is because the blood brain barrier has gotten you a big hit.
Like this happened a lot after COVID. I'm sure you've seen this too, Mike, where people were fine, they got COVID, and then all of a sudden they have these infections and this brain problem. And like, what, you know, this is because that blood brain barrier. So what we did at transcriptions was we created some compounds, uh, or used some compounds that can get across, no problem.
And then actually a very, uh, very, they're very good for the receptor because they don't deplete GABA along the way. Like things like alcohol and sleep, drugs and like benzodiazepines, they all bind to the GABA receptor. But the problem is that they bind to a separate site to where GABA would bind. It's called an allosteric site, and they enhance the affinity for GABA to bind, but they also deplete GABA as a result of that very, very quickly.
So you get tolerance, you get withdrawal, you get dependence. [00:45:00] That's why, you know, these drugs aren't great at all. Um, especially of course alcohol. The other ones are bad too. They can be used if they need to be. But what we did is we created some compounds or some products that have compounds together that bind to these allosteric sites like Cava or like CBD or CBG or Magnolia Bark or some, some of the ideas.
And then we have something that binds directly to where Gabaa bind we, something called Al gaba, which is the vitamin B three attached that gets across, no problem, into the brain. And we also have something called Rin, which is from a, a psychedelic mushroom called the Amita Mascara. Mushroom
Dr Mike T Nelson: Amina Mascar.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. Yeah. It's
Dr Mike T Nelson: a fascinating mushroom.
Dr Scott Sherr: Fascinating. Yeah. And so Christmas lore and Alice in Wonderland and Mario Brothers, you wanna dry the mushroom. The mushroom itself is toxic. Um, because has another compound in there called hypo tenic acid. Hypotonic acid breaks down into Arin, which is a much more, uh, it's not, it's not psychedelic at, at low doses.
And it's also a long acting binding to where GABA would bind. So what I do in practice is I give people something. Like our tro com for example, that will [00:46:00] give them the experience without making them feel too tired. Um, 'cause you don't wanna make somebody so tired either, but that's not gonna make them feel good either.
And then they get the experience of, okay, this is what it feels like to be back in parasympathetic mode. And then, you know, you and I can, you know, talk about how those, like you talked about the meditation, you know, calming, breath work, sauna, you know, whatever it might be. That's the next layer. And then like the, the next layer after that is like, why the hell are you so stressed anyway?
Right? What's going on in your life that calls you to be in this sort of spiral? And, and that could be like, you know, myriad type reasons, right? As we know that needs to be addressed over the long term for sure. But if you're not addressing that parasympathetic aspect now, very unlikely you're gonna see them heal over the long term.
I always talk about this and I'm sure you have too, Mike, which is that I don't, I can't give you enough supplements to support you if your sympathetic nervous system is. Clamp down. It's like, I hate when conventional doctors say that when you take supplements, it's just like having expensive urine. But it kind of is if you're, if you're sympathetically dominant and clamp [00:47:00] down, because no matter whatever I give you, for the most part, unless it's calming down, your nervous system is gonna help you heal from, you know, mitochondrial dysfunction or toxic exposure, whatever.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And as you mentioned, if you're highly sympathetic, you've got, you know, blood flow is diverted away from the gut and you've got, I mean, I've worked with some people where their digestive issues were primarily that they're just on the sympathetic side, like 24 7,
Dr Scott Sherr: right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: They're spinning two, three, sometimes three and a half millimoles of lactate at rest, like sitting there talking to me crazy, you know, and it's just like.
Let's just fix that first. And not all the time, but many times, like their gut stuff clears up. Oh, you're not diverting blood flow from your gut like all of the time. Oh, no wonder your, you know, gut gets better. It doesn't always work, but it's amazing how often just those things have these huge Yeah. Uh, systemic effects overall too.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. A cool sequencing that I've realized over the last, really over the last six months is sequencing the capacity in the mitochondria [00:48:00] before downregulating the nervous system. Yes, I would agree. And this is been very interesting to me because what I, I've been doing this with methylene blue actually, where I give very, very small doses of it for a couple weeks before we start downregulating the nervous system.
Because if we, sometimes, as you said, if you down regulate the nervous system too quickly and there's not enough support there. You've been on this stress mode for a long time. You've been pumping out cortisol, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. Your mitochondria are in this sort of highly Ross, uh, the Ross State, where they have much more Ross and much more, much less antioxidant capacity.
And so if you suddenly, you know, turn off all of those hormones and those neurotransmitters, there can be this sort of like this lag effect where people can feel pretty, pretty terrible. So if you can sequence it where you start supporting mitochondria first before you start working on the anxiety and the stress component, like that's where I've seen really amazing benefits over the last six months as I've been starting to do this more.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, that's [00:49:00] exactly what I'll do. Like I kind of think of if your aerobic base is really poor, I wanna target that first. Let's give you as many micronutrients up your nutrition, probably up your calories, more protein essential fatty acids, potentially methylene blue. Other things that may help with mitochondria.
Get you on a solid aerobic training program. Like, give your body the capacity to allow you to get back to baseline, and then we'll kind of, you know, sprinkle in a few things, you know, to, to help with that. But in the back of my head, I'm not expecting these huge changes until they start having that capacity.
Because as you know, then it becomes easier to do the thing you're requesting them to do. You know, a lot of times it's, I think as trainers and coaches, it's. Easy to yell at the client to do something that we know should be effective, but if they can't do it and they don't have the capacity to do it, like to me, that's not really that effective coaching.
The thing you're telling 'em isn't necessarily wrong. It's just not [00:50:00] effective at that particular time, but maybe very effective in four to six months. So
Dr Scott Sherr: yeah, and that's the beautiful, that's a beautiful segue into how I think about this is, which is that. We talked about in the beginning, we have a nonprofit organization that's training practitioners in, in health optimization medicine, health optimization practice to delineate that health optimization medicine is, if you're licensed a provider health optimization practice is if you're a non-licensed provider.
But that kind of process takes time, as you said, right? You're optimizing vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and co-factors. We're using the science, uh, called metabolomics, which is this really cool science of kind of melding the real time workings of the cell with environmental exposures and looking at everything in, in real time there.
What's happening now, what just happened. And so you can use that work, use that data to optimize, you know, micronutrients, fatty acids, um, looking at gut mi, gut meta, gut metabolites. Um, you can look at hormones as well in this capacity. And doing all those things is really the sustainable way to maintain somebody over the long term.
And that's where we're trying to get everybody, which is where they're at a stable [00:51:00] base. And they're more resilient and they have the more capacity and they can use things as needed when they have a additional stress, but for the most part, they shouldn't need that stuff, right? They should need, you know, their methylene boo on a regular basis.
They should need something like, you know, tro com or like anything to calm down their nervous system orally. They should be able to do this with, with a little bit of a couple rounds of breath work. They should be able to do this with a couple, you know, minutes of meditation or whatever it might be, right?
So the goal is to give people the, to the tools and then over time they can use them more targeted and less often. And that's kind of, you know, the goal for my clinical practice as well.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's awesome. So as we wrap up here, if we cycle back to methylene blue, if we have someone who is an athlete, what do you think is a dose before exercise?
Probably about two hours before.
Dr Scott Sherr: Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Uh, dose maybe potentially after for recovery. And then the, I have another follow up question about a different case on that, and then we'll talk about how the transcriptions dosing is gonna be a little bit different. [00:52:00] Sure. But I think people in general are thinking dosing just in terms of you milligrams, which is more where the research is from.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah, so the dosing that I'd mostly recommend people fall into the range somewhere between around eight milligrams to about 25 milligrams per dose. And typically the, on the lower end of that scale is all you're gonna need is what it comes down to. Um, but that's the dosing range that I've mostly seen.
What I often do for people, even athletes, even people that are doing it for the endurance edge side of things, is it started off at a low dose start at four milligrams, which is like a quarter of one of our trophies called just blue. And you take that for about three days, see how you feel. Um, then after three days, increase it to a quarter, additional quarter, so eight milligrams, then 12, then 16.
Like, that's typically the ra. I like people to do that. Even if you're starting it off for something you're not gonna take every day, I still recommend taking it every day for that period of time. It does, it doesn't stay in your system for, you know, more than 24 hours by any means at these kinds of doses.
It's way outta your system. The goal is just to get you a feeling. On a daily basis how you're feeling when you're taking it, [00:53:00] and then when you get that feeling of how it makes you feel or how it helps you recover on the other end of things. If you're doing it on the recovery side, then that's your dose you're gonna use, whether you use it, you know, periodically where you use it, you know, only on, you know, days when you're traveling or whatever it might be.
Um, that's typically what I would recommend doing. That's your mitochondrial support dose. It doesn't become more anti-infective until you start getting around that milligram to a milligram and a half per kilogram dosage, 50 to 70 milligrams or so. And if you get abusing those kinds of doses, I usually recommend working with a provider because
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah,
Dr Scott Sherr: it is more stressful in the system.
On those doses. And, and especially as you get higher than that, 'cause what we do, not only is it gonna help you make energy and with the redox side of things detox, but it's also gonna help as an anti-infective 'cause it makes more hydrogen peroxide in the system. Hydrogen peroxide. Our body, our cells use this as an anti-infective and as an anti-cancer to kill off cells that we don't need.
But you have to have, if you're gonna get more of that hydrogen peroxide in the system, you need to have the capacity to rev up, you know, your antioxidant pathways like NRF two and things like [00:54:00] that to make your own glutathione, for example, to be able to neutralize that stress. And if you're already under a lot of stress, you may not be able to tolerate that very well.
And so one of the ways that people get into trouble you using methylene blue is by using too high of a dose too quickly. Um, and the other way they get into trouble is by using, uh, dosing. That's very difficult to understand, like liquids for example. Um, they come in droppers and you know, unfortunately with liquids, the potency is all over the board, typically about 50% less than what it says on the label.
But then you're taking a number of drops per day and then you tell me. Hey, doc, I've been taking 10 drops a day and I feel terrible. I'm like, well, how many milligrams have you been taking? They're like, oh, I have, I don't know. I'm just taking drops. Right. You'll actually know what you're taking. And that's like one of my biggest pet peeves.
I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. You're taking a liquid. Yeah. You have no idea how much you're taking and you feel terrible, you know, don't take it anymore. Right. Um, liquids also have a higher chance of degrading over time. They're messier. Um, methylene leaves are very big. Stain
Dr Mike T Nelson: the crap out of everything.
Dr Scott Sherr: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Word to the wise. Even with our trophies, having, you know, making sure you're cutting them [00:55:00] on dark surfaces. Mm-hmm. Um, and then having. Buffered vitamin C at the house, um, can scrub out almost anything if you get the blue on there. Um, this has saved my marriage at least three times. I think now, Mike, once in my once in the laundry, which that wasn't a pretty picture, uh, once was in, um, in my sink as well.
Um, you have to realize when you're taking methylene blue, by the way, that your urine's gonna turn blue as well. Yep. So if you have a hard time making it to the bathroom, that's another problem. Right. Um, so the, the toilet itself will be fine. Um, but again, surfaces you have to be aware of. So buffered vitamin C, um, and avoiding liquids, um, in my estimation is usually a good idea, uh, for the reasons I just mentioned.
Um, and keeping the dose low, like around again, the average for most people, like most of the athletes that I work with that are using it either for recovery or performance, are taking between eight and 12 milligrams per dose. Um, not typically more than that, unless they're doing a lot of, of endurance work or a lot of, yeah.
Special
Dr Mike T Nelson: cases. Yeah.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. A lot of power, high powered stuff. But on average between eight and 12 milligrams is [00:56:00] what I've seen to be the most benefit.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I, it's a funny story about the toilet. So a while ago I was testing out some methylene blue and I had taken it in the morning and I actually just completely forgot that I had taken it for a few days and I'm like, oh, my wife supposed to be using some new toilet bowl cleaner.
I don't remember the toilets being blue all the time. And it took me a while to go, oh, you dumbass, you took methylene blue. So it's not the toilet bowl cleaner. It's, you know, your urine's a little bit blue colored.
Dr Scott Sherr: Exactly, yeah. So you can scrub out the toilet with, with, actually, with buffered vitamin C will also work.
Um, so that's, that's what I have in my house. That's what has saved my marriage. And I would recommend, you know, doing it for your surfaces just in case. I mean, certainly. Traveling with liquid is just a nightmare. Oh, yeah. Um, we have these things called buccal trophies, which are these dissolvable lozenges, uh, at transcriptions, which you could dissolve in the mouth, um, because they're a buccal.
But with methylene blue, we typically recommend just swallowing it typically. Hmm. Um, because it's, it's so highly bioavailable. It's one of the few compounds out there that the [00:57:00] bioavailability is like between 70 and 90%. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: High.
Dr Scott Sherr: Yeah. Yeah. Which is very, very high compared to most, uh, compounds you're gonna take orally.
So I, I, we do have another product that has a combination of methylene blue nicotine, caffeine, and CBD, and that's called blue canine. That one specifically, I do usually recommend in the mouth because it's not gonna be that blue. It's only has five milligrams of methylene blue in the total troche end.
Nicotine is very fast acting. So if you dissolve it in the mouth, you're gonna feel within about five to 10 minutes. And that's great for productivity focus, it's, people do use it as a pre-workout as well because, you know, because of the nicotine in there and the caffeine, they're very low dose, just a milligram of nicotine and 50 milligrams, five zero of caffeine.
It's a kind of quarter cup of coffee. And usually people that's a full trophy, people take a, like a half of those doses and it's a nice way to, you know, keep yourself more focused so you don't want to scroll on your Instagram feed while you're doing your workout, which is never good for performance, you know, so,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah.
Awesome. And where can people find out more about transcriptions and all the other products? I know you've got, you know, products to quarter steps [00:58:00] and you've got all sorts of cool stuff there.
Dr Scott Sherr: Transcriptions is the name of the company. transcriptions.com is where you can find us. We have tons of blogs and education we, that, that's kind of our big thing is that again, we have our nonprofit organization as well.
So we really care about educating and really making sure that we get as much good content out as there as possible. So, uh, our nonprofits called Health Optimization Medicine and Practice Our Home Hope for short. You can check it out@homehope.org. If you're a practitioner, don't have to be licensed.
You're looking for additional education. We would love you to come check it out and learn from us. We have a seven module certification. Uh, the foundational module is metabolomics, actually, which I alluded to earlier. Um, you could even just get certified to practice metabolomics if you don't wanna take the rest, uh, because we do think that there's such a huge.
Potential to add on metabolomics to clinical practice or even an exercise performance center or whatever, right? As soon as you're measuring, you know, mi vitamins, minerals, nutrients at this level, and then optimizing them to optimal ranges between 21 and 30. Like it's a big deal. It's a very big [00:59:00] deal.
And, uh, we have an annual symposium every year as well. Actually, our next one's gonna be in Chicago in October, uh, to, I think it's October 2nd and third at the DRE Hotel. And so we have that every year. We have a symposium where we get people together, um, and we have speakers, we have continual med medical education credits and things like that.
And then I guess the last thing would just be me. If you're interested in more of my stuff, um, you can find me. My website is my name, Dr. Scott she.com. D-R-S-C-O-T-T-S-H-E-R-R. Um, I have my consulting there. Um, links to my company is, I also have a company called One Base Health. That works in the hyperbaric space, in integrated technology space as well.
Um, and then on the socials at transcriptions at Dr. Scott Scher at home hope org, at home at uh, one Base Health as well. So I know there's lots of places, but uh, everybody has a different place they like to go these days, so
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much and I appreciate all the info and I love all the educational stuff you guys put out too, which is nice to see companies that want their [01:00:00] consumers to be educated and is not over the top of marketing and weirdo claims.
Like they, they want to actually help people and they want to actually, you know, provide education at the same time too, which is awesome to see. So
Dr Scott Sherr: yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: highly recommend everybody check that out, and thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. This was great.
Dr Scott Sherr: Thanks for having me, Mike. This has been great too.
I appreciate it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the Flex Diet podcast. Huge thanks to Dr. Scott Scher for sharing all of his wonderful information. Uh, make sure to check out all of his great stuff. We'll put all of his links down below. And if you are interested in anything from Proscriptions, I highly recommend you check them out.
I have a link down below, uh, which is, uh, FYI and affiliate link, but. I've been following those guys for, uh, quite some time and, uh, just been testing out their products and really enjoy 'em. I've got some of my clients testing them out right [01:01:00] now too, so thanks again to Dr. Scott. I really appreciate it.
And if you want more information from me, you can hop on Newsletter link down below and coming up, I will be at the Sports Pharmacy conference this coming weekend. As you're listening to this, as of Monday, April 6th or so, and if you're there, please come up and say hi. I'll be at speaking also at the International Society of Sports Nutrition Conference in Florida, uh, middle of June.
So if you're at that one, please come up and say hello. As always, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really, really appreciate it. And we've got a great lineup of more guests coming up soon, so stay tuned for that. If you have time and can give us the thumbs up, the like download, even, leave us a review, all that stuff goes a long ways to helping [01:02:00] with the podcast.
So thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 5: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not use the information on the podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication or other treatment.
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Information provided on the podcast does not create a doctor patient relationship between you and any of the health professionals affiliated with our podcast. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or [01:03:00] accept responsibility for statements made by guests.
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Speaker 3: There's something wrong with his hearing aid.
Speaker 4: Yeah. What's wrong?
Speaker 3: I can't hear with it.
Speaker 4: Oh, no wonder. It's too far away.