Blue M&Ms 'mend spinal injuries'

[Justin]

Blue M&Ms 'mend spinal injuries'
Link to Original Article

The food dye that gives blue M&Ms their colour can help mend spinal injuries, researchers have claimed after tests on rats.

The compound Brilliant Blue G blocks a chemical that kills healthy spinal cord cells around the damaged area - an event that often causes more irreversible damage than the original injury. BBG not only reduced the size of the lesion but also improved the recovery of motor skills, the rodent tests showed.

Those treated with BBG were later able to walk, although with a limp. Rats that did not receive the BBG solution never regained the ability to walk. On the downside, the treatment causes the skin to temporarily turn bright blue and BBG needs to be injected soon after the trauma. The test injections were given within 15 minutes.

The new findings by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York build on work reported five years ago by the same team. They discovered that adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - a chemical that keeps our cells alive - quickly pours into the area surrounding a spinal cord injury.

But they found it overstimulated otherwise healthy neurons and caused them to die from metabolic stress, creating a secondary injury. Injecting oxidised ATP into the site of the injury helped stop this, they found.

But neurosurgeon Prof Maiken Nedergaard, who led the research, said: "No one wants to put a needle into a spinal cord that has just been severely injured so we knew we needed another way." The new approach of using BBG has answered this problem because it can be administered intravenously.

More tests will be needed to prove the safety of BBG before human clinical trials can begin. But researchers are optimistic new treatments for acute spinal cord injuries could emerge in the next few years.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009
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Blue Food Dye Treats Spine Injury in Rats


Image: Takahiro Takano, University of Rochester Medical Center.

The same blue food dye that gives your Gatorade its turquoise tint and turns your tongue a peculiar shade of purple might also protect your nerves in the case of spinal cord injury.

By lucky accident, researchers discovered that the commonly used food additive FD&C blue dye No. 1 is remarkably similar to a lab compound that blocks a key step in nerve inflammation. When rats with spinal cord injury were given an infusion of blue dye, they recovered much faster than rats that didn’t get the treatment. And researchers reported only one adverse effect: The rats turned blue...

Click here for the full Wired Science: News for Your Neurons article.

I science.

[KBear]

Interesting.... hubby insists I only eat the green ones!

[Cindylou]

I am all over this study! First thing tomorrow morning....buy me some blue m & m's! (I don't even care if I turn blue!)

[Katie]

Justin, how is this dye compared to the Methylene Blue that I am having injected on Tuesday for the same reason...to kill the pain?

Interestingly, any study I can find regarding previous use for curing malaria reports that the side effects include the patients' urine turning green (blue + yellow = green I guess) plus the whites of their eyes also turned blue. These side effects seemed to discourage the use of it, no matter how successful.

I may have to change fashion accessories after this

[KBear]

Justin, how is this dye compared to the Methylene Blue that I am having injected on Tuesday for the same reason...to kill the pain?

Interestingly, any study I can find regarding previous use for curing malaria reports that the side effects include the patients' urine turning green (blue + yellow = green I guess) plus the whites of their eyes also turned blue. These side effects seemed to discourage the use of it, no matter how successful.

I may have to change fashion accessories after this

LMAO- I'm sure blue will be very fitting for you! The little mouse looks cute blue, and I hate mice!

[Justin]

Justin, how is this dye compared to the Methylene Blue that I am having injected on Tuesday for the same reason...to kill the pain?

I'm looking into this. I've gotta do some more reading.

[Katie]

You must be so sorry I signed up here. I always have more questions than answers

That little smurf mouse is so darn cute! I wonder how long that lasts? He sort of reminds me of the time I gave my Samoyed dog a bath. I had read somewhere that adding Mrs. Smith's Liquid Bluing (that was used for making white laundry whiter) to the rinse water would really brighten up her coat.

So I added a few drops to the water. Obviously a few drops too many, as I ended up with a blue dog She was the colour of the banner up above, the one where all the different forums are listed, a nice sky blue! And you know, that stuff just does not rinse out Yes, that blue....

If I didn't have animals, I wouldn't have all these stories.....poor Justin. Just when he thought he was posting something scientific, off we go on a tangent.

[Katie]

Justin, it said in the above report that the BBG was administered intravenously. How does that get the dye directly to the spine where it was injured? And is this why the mice turned blue, because the dye went everywhere? Why wouldn't they inject it at the site like I am having done next week? It said that "No one wants to put a needle into a spinal cord that has just been severely injured so we knew we needed another way." That's where the IV came in, I guess.

But does that mean that I risk injury as well? The surgeon is injecting the dye right after doing the dicogram. There has been several discussions lately about the dangers of doing a discogram on the cervical area. Is the lumbar safer somehow? Maybe I should stick to the discogram, and why would that be any safer than the quote from the study above?

Am I 'thinking' too much again?

[KBear]

Justin, it said in the above report that the BBG was administered intravenously. How does that get the dye directly to the spine where it was injured? And is this why the mice turned blue, because the dye went everywhere? Why wouldn't they inject it at the site like I am having done next week? It said that "No one wants to put a needle into a spinal cord that has just been severely injured so we knew we needed another way." That's where the IV came in, I guess.

But does that mean that I risk injury as well? The surgeon is injecting the dye right after doing the dicogram. There has been several discussions lately about the dangers of doing a discogram on the cervical area. Is the lumbar safer somehow? Maybe I should stick to the discogram, and why would that be any safer than the quote from the study above?

Am I 'thinking' too much again?

Katie- First, I'm afraid our brains function much the same... I go from one thought to the next, talk to myself, etc. LOL

Lumbar is safer, for reasons I don't know, nor understand. When they do the discogram, they inject dye into your disc, to duplicate the pain. In a healthy disc, you may feel a slight discomfort; but that's all. IN a bad disc, it should duplicate your pain, pretty much exactly and very intense for about 30 seconds. They will also take images and it will show if the dye stays in the disc, or leaks out through a tear, and how quickly it leaks. I wouldn't worry about the blue dye, because it sounds the same as a discogram, so don't think it would be any riskier than a discogram (my lay opinion)

[Justin]

Katie,

Methylene blue and brilliant blue g (coomassie dyes) differ in their molecular structure and are different compounds. For some reason, I was thinking they were the same as I've used both during my microbiology research, but I've never referred to coomassie dye as "brilliant blue g."

Methylene blue is commonly used to treat cyanide poisoning (and is also commonly used for staining DNA/RNA in the lab), and brilliant blue g (coomassie dye) is used in gel electrophoresis to help visualize the separation of proteins into different "bands" within the gel.

It is interesting that both of these dyes are currently being studied for the treatment of pain, swelling and inflammation in Spine Patients (spinal cord injuries, degenerative disc disease, etc.).

I hope this helps.