Showing posts with label Methylene Blue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Methylene Blue. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2024

Chase Hughes on Methylene Blue

Chase Hughes on Methylene Blue.  

Dr. John Lieurance was talking about mitochondria.  Took Chase 2 days to find the video by Dr. John Lieurance on Methylene Blue.  His book, It's All in Your Head: Endo Nasal Cranial Therapy, Dr. John Lieurance, 2022.

7:14  I've had 9 deployments, explosions, all that kind of stuff.  I don't have any front teeth on the top left.  These are all fake.  

7:23  Is the bridge straight across the midline?

I think so. 

7:28  Broken nose?  I can see that your nose is still a little . . . 

7:30  A few times.

7:31  How's your breathing through the nose, that feels restricted? 

7:35  I can only breathe out of one nostril. 

7:36  Which one? 

7:38  This one.  The right side.  

7:41  This is what's really interesting and I get into depth in my Endo Nasal book about like what happens because your parasympathetic is going to be run more by the right brain, right?  So the left nostril is going to be more parasympathetic.  So if you're not breathing, and that air isn't going through there, you're not activating different systems that are going to keep your autonomic nervous system running, which is going to be, like, you know, profusing the brain because so . . . what concerns me is that so this is supposed to move.  You never cross the midline, so literally we may see some really positive changes with you even with this apparatus in here but then you might not hold on to it.  It might not be until we get this split so that it can move.

8:46. So all this stuff I would have scoffed at was actually proven science and they don't teach the stuff in medical school I learn more about my brain health then I thought was even possible and I got really seriously introduced of red light therapy and how red light gets absorbed and then used by methylene blue in our body's bodies and it's proven to help with everything from pain and inflammation to dementia and brain issues in even hair loss and I'm actually embarrassed to say that I thought all this was friends I really thought that and I didn't think I'd fine of studies in a mountain a very serious research here.

9:31. It's day three I just finished my second full day with Dr John and yesterday obviously as you saw there is some amazing stuff I just got a notification on my screen my Uber's going to be here in 2 minutes so I'll see you there.

9:46.  Let me give you a tiny sample of what I heard about methylene blue.  It supercharges our brain, energy, our memory, our focus, our cognitive performance and it doesn't just sharpen short-term and long-term memory it also balances out your neurotransmitters.  It can reduce depression and anxiety which makes it a hugely powerful mood stabilizer and it shields ourselves from something called oxidative stress, which is the cause of disease and it promotes overall health and life longevity while it also boosts mitochondrial efficiency to increase our energy levels but it didn't stop there.  Methylene Blue crosses the blood-brain barrier to give massive support to your neurons it's like nothing I've ever seen before protect against neurodegenerative conditions like mesial temporal sclerosis.  And I always thought that if something could save my life I would hear about it from a doctor or it would be extremely popular methylene blue isn't sexy it's not expensive a long time ago so it's easy to make and it's able to make money for the factory that makes it but the big companies not so much and I realize the doctors that I've been talking to aren't lying they just don't get education on this stuff which is seriously well reviewed and well documented for over 100 years it was all too good to be true.  And then it went crazy.  I listened to Dr John talk about melatonin in doses of 200 mg I genuinely thought melatonin was a 2 mg little pill for sleeping.  Man, was I wrong.  I had no idea.  it's a sleep aid.  It regulates sleep sleep-wake cycle.  It's an insanely powerful antioxidant.  It's a huge immune system booster that makes us fight infections, but it even helps battle chronic diseases.  It reduces inflammation all over the body, which is the root of almost all disease and it can boost your mood and reduce anxiety and it can help with managing serious pain, even helping with brain repair, repairing a human brain.  And on top of all of this, taking high doses of melatonin doesn't change how your body makes its own melatonin.  There's no crash there's no rebound and what I just described about melatonin is like 3% of what it's capable of doing.  I tried the Melatonin.  It was a suppository because taking it orally means the liver is going to destroy almost all of it in something that we call the first-pass effect.  The next day I woke up feeling better than when I was in my twenties and my mind and memory were perfect and I thought it was a fluke until about 3 weeks went by and I went from nine seizures a day to zero.  My kids were going to have a father.  And I shared this with people with severe brain disease and dementia, fibromyalgia, and amyloidosis.  I'm not a doctor but it seems to be radically helping people and everybody that I've talked to about this has come back and told me doctors have never seen recoveries like this before and the brain absolutely can rewire itself which is exactly what I needed and I did my first therapeutic psychedelic experience in California where it's legal.  I ingested about 4 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and I have the most spiritual experience of my entire life and within 45 minutes I swear to you I could feel the neurons were wiring themselves back together or the damage was.  And the other most important thing I learned about was something called beetroot powder it improves blood flow it's high in stuff called nitrites which are body converts down into nitric oxide it helps our blood flow all over our body including the brain and beets are packed with antioxidants and one of them is called betalins and these help protect brain cells from oxidative stress that we talked about so all throughout this journey through thousands of research papers and scientific data and I found one thing all the time that seriously shook me up: the further a creature is removed from their natural environment the more they suffer disease.  And this isn't just humans it's all creatures.  As a behavioral expert, I started to understand this in a profound way that shook me to my core our ancestors passed down a lot to us fears and instincts, behavioral patterns, wisdom, and lots of neurological wiring to keep us alive.  And I realize that the lower part of our brain is like an ancestor living inside of us and when we spend time in nature that part of the brain starts thriving like crazy it's like an ancestor is there in your head and showing them a bunch of shopping malls and freeways is really confusing to them; they don't know what that is.  This is the way that I look at it anyway. We don't thrive in nature.  We are nature.  We are not meant to be away from it for long if ever, and this is why disease is so prevalent.  And for people who don't spend a lot of time in nature, disease thrives in artificial environments, whether you are a whale living in captivity or a human living in a city this will be a whole different video coming soon but let me sum it up for you.  

DISTANCE FROM DESCENDANTS IS DISEASE

Distance from descendants is disease.  When we become disconnected from Our Roots our heritage in the natural ways of life that are ancestors would recognize it leads to various forms of illness, physical and psychological.  So I was all in and Michelle was all in too.  We wanted our kids have not stop exposure to Nature.  We sold our house immediately, and we moved into this.  No more faking it.  No more brain disease, at least so far.  It's been 9 months.  If you want a few details about what I'm doing, I'm going to add a ton of research for you in the description and a link to Doctor John's YouTube videos that seriously changed my life.  And if you can get your fingers ready I'm going to put my phone neurology protocol on the screen right here so you can screenshot the whole thing in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1, now.

16:40. It's been 9 months and so far things look very promising and I think I found a way to actually save my brain if I had taken that first prescription, not a single neuron would have been healed.  No damage would have been repaired and there was no way to tell if my brain would continue to just fail and fall apart none of this is medical advice I'm not a doctor but I hope this might enable you to possibly change someone's life I might go right back to seizures any day it's possible I imagine and I might forget who I am and who my family is but for the meantime, this is what I'm calling it.  It is a miracle, and this means we can all be a miracle for somebody in some way.  The universe isn't out there.  You are part of it.  The molecules that make up your body have been here for millions of years our lives are insanely short and nobody really knows the meaning of life or why we're even here for sure.  

And I've been on 9 deployments.  I've seen the worst that the world has to offer, and with my tiny peephole of life, I can tell you that there's no benefit to pessimism you can think of.  But let me leave you with one of the most important lessons I've ever learned in my life and this is to choose to live with compassion and relentless curiosity.

DR. RUSSEL REITER: Melatonin and methylene blue belong in every emergency medical kit.

from Dr. Frank Yap, MD's "Melatonin 101: What You Need to Know, an Interview with Dr. Russel Reiter," September 15, 2024. 

THE HIGHLIGHTS

1)  the most important antioxidant molecules and certainly the most ancient, as it has been part of biological life for over 3 billion years.  It's present in plants and bacteria. 

2)  In the human body — aside from having direct antioxidant effects — it also stimulates the synthesis of glutathione and other important antioxidants like superoxide dismutase and catalase 
3)  the antioxidant activity of melatonin is extremely diverse.

4)  It, in fact, is a very good radical scavenger. There are other radical scavengers — vitamin C, vitamin E, and so forth — but melatonin is superior to those 

5)  it stimulates antioxidative enzymes, especially in mitochondria. Mitochondria are small organelles in the cell that generate the bulk of the free radicals. 
6)  It also removes free radicals and prevents the degeneration of the mitochondria, and why this is so important is because mitochondria are really the center of the action within a cell. 
7)  95% of the melatonin in your body is concentrated within the mitochondria inside the cells.
8)  it appears that under stress, all cells may upregulate their ability to produce melatonin because it's so highly productive 
9)  Anytime your skin is exposed to natural sunlight, however, you can be sure you’re receiving the necessary wavelengths of near-infrared to generate melatonin in your mitochondria. 
10)  there are two types of melatonin in your body: The melatonin produced in your pineal gland, which traverses into your blood, and subcellular melatonin produced inside your mitochondria. 
11)  bright sun exposure around solar noon will indirectly help your pineal gland to produce melatonin during the night. 
12)  If you supplement with melatonin, it will get into your mitochondria and, in fact, do what melatonin does — neutralize free radicals and protect the mitochondria's function.”  
13)  we infused melatonin directly into the heart after the vessel was opened. That reduced cardiac damage by roughly 40%. 
14)  people who are potentially suffering with heart failure because of a damaged heart, they survive better and longer if they are given melatonin on a regular basis. 
15)  Reiter stresses that melatonin has no known toxic threshold, so even though we don’t know what the ideal dose is, we do know it’s safe even at high doses.  
16)  melatonin dosing should follow circadian biology, so around 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and before bed. 
17)  an emergency medical technician goes out and picks up a patient who has clearly a heart attack. I think on-site, immediately, melatonin should be given intravenously rather than orally.  
18)  Methylene blue is well-documented to be highly beneficial for reperfusion injuries. 
19) Melatonin and methylene blue belong in every emergency medical kit. 
20)  excess seed oils are the primary reason why most people are metabolically inflexible.

MELATONIN 101

Melatonin is one of the most important antioxidant molecules and certainly the most ancient, as it has been part of biological life for over 3 billion years. It's present in prokaryotes, which are bacteria, and even in plants. In the human body — aside from having direct antioxidant effects — it also stimulates the synthesis of glutathione and other important antioxidants like superoxide dismutase and catalase. 

Reiter continues: 

“Melatonin has been here forever . . . and its functions have evolved. It has learned to work successfully with other molecules during this three-billion-year evolution. One of the molecules with which it collaborates is glutathione.  But the antioxidant activity of melatonin is extremely diverse.

It, in fact, is a very good radical scavenger. There are other radical scavengers — vitamin C, vitamin E, and so forth — but melatonin is superior to those. But beyond that, it stimulates antioxidative enzymes, especially in mitochondria. Mitochondria are small organelles in the cell that generate the bulk of the free radicals.
 
So, it's very important to have a good antioxidant at the level of the mitochondria and melatonin happens to be located and is, in fact, synthesized in the mitochondria. Melatonin scavenges radicals that are generated, but it also stimulates something called sirtuin-3, which activates or deacetylates superoxide dismutase (SOD), which is a very important antioxidative enzyme. 
It also removes free radicals and prevents the degeneration of the mitochondria, and why this is so important is because mitochondria are really the center of the action within a cell. In other words, there's strong evidence that aging, frailty of aging, senescence of cells as we age, relate to molecular damage at the level of the mitochondria, and melatonin seems to be very efficient at protecting mitochondria from that damage.”
Melatonin increases glutathione through a genomic effect on the enzyme that regulates the synthesis of gamma glutamylcysteine synthase, the rate-limiting enzyme in glutathione synthesis. Melatonin activates that enzyme.

Glutathione tends to be found in high concentrations in cells, although some is also found, to a lesser degree, in the extracellular space and the mitochondria. Meanwhile, 95% of the melatonin in your body is concentrated within the mitochondria inside the cells.

Its antioxidant effects are quite diverse, but include preventing free radical generation by enhancing the efficiency of the electron transport chain so fewer electrons leach onto oxygen molecules to generate superoxide antiradical. 

Related: Best Melatonin Gummies for Adults

HOW MITOCHONDRIAL MELATONIN IS GENERATED
Mitochondrial melatonin production is one of the reasons why regular sun exposure is so crucial. Most people understand that sun exposure on bare skin generates vitamin D, courtesy of UVB (ultraviolet B radiation). Few, however, understand that the near-infrared spectrum, when hitting your skin, triggers the generation of melatonin in your mitochondria. 

Reiter explains: 
“Near-infrared radiation penetrates relatively easily the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Every one of those cells contains mitochondria and it appears that near-infrared radiation that is detected, in fact, induces melatonin production. That is important because we now think that melatonin within mitochondria is inducible under a lot of stressful conditions. 
That is not definitively proven, but it appears that under stress, all cells may upregulate their ability to produce melatonin because it's so highly productive. And typically, under stress, free radicals are generated. That is emphasized by the [fact] that in plants ... that happens. 
In other words, if you expose plants to drought, heat, cold, to metal toxicity, the first thing they do is upregulate their melatonin, because all of those situations generate free radicals. And we suspect, although that has not yet been definitely proven, in animal cells as well, including human [cells].”
Identifying the specific wavelengths that trigger melatonin production can be tricky, but generally speaking, it’s likely to be the range between 800 to 1,000 nanometers (nm). This range of near-infrared is invisible and has the ability to penetrate tissue. Visible wavelengths generally do not penetrate the skin, and therefore cannot stimulate your mitochondria.

Anytime your skin is exposed to natural sunlight, however, you can be sure you’re receiving the necessary wavelengths of near-infrared to generate melatonin in your mitochondria. Conversely, when indoors under artificial lighting, you can be certain you’re not getting any. This is because most window glass is low-e and filters out a good portion of the near-infrared, so even sitting near a window is not going to provide you with this benefit.

To compensate for time spent indoors, I use a 250-watt Photo Beam near-infrared bulb from SaunaSpace in my office. I keep it lit when I'm in my office and have my shirt off.  Considering most people spend most of their days indoors, mitochondrial melatonin deficiency is likely rampant. And, since many also do not get enough sleep, they also have a deficiency in the melatonin synthesized in the pineal gland in response to darkness. 

TWO TYPES OF MELATONIN
As hinted at above, there are two types of melatonin in your body: The melatonin produced in your pineal gland, which traverses into your blood, and subcellular melatonin produced inside your mitochondria.

Importantly, the melatonin that your mitochondria produce does not escape your mitochondria. It doesn't go into your blood. So, you're not going to directly increase your blood or serum level of melatonin by sun exposure. But, bright sun exposure around solar noon will indirectly help your pineal gland to produce melatonin during the night.

It is important to understand that your blood level of melatonin is indicative of the melatonin produced in your pineal gland, and/or oral supplementation. Conversely, the melatonin produced by your pineal gland cannot enter into the mitochondria, which is why it is so important to get regular sun exposure. Reiter explains:

“In other words, if you surgically remove the pineal gland from an animal or human, blood levels of melatonin are essentially zero. Not totally zero — I think what happens is that the mitochondria in other cells continue to produce melatonin and some of that leaks out into the blood and gives you a residual — but you have no circadian rhythm.

Melatonin production in the pineal gland is highly rhythmic, depending on the light-dark cycle. This is not true for melatonin in mitochondria. It's not cyclic. It's not impacted by the light-dark environment. It may be affected by certain wavelengths of energy, but it's not affected by the light-dark environment.

So, blood levels are derived from the pineal gland, and this rhythm is very important for setting circadian rhythms. In other words, the function of that melatonin is quite different from the function of the mitochondrial-produced melatonin. It sets the rhythm. Of course, there's always some scavenging by that melatonin as well, but the real scavenging is involved with mitochondrial-produced melatonin.”

ORAL SUPPLEMENTATION NEUTRALIZES FREE RADICALS
Oral supplementation, however, can enter your cells and mitochondria. This is a detail I was wrong about before, and which Reiter clarifies in this interview:
“If you supplement with melatonin, it can also enter cells and get into the mitochondria as well. And that is also very important ... As you age, mitochondrial melatonin diminishes. If you supplement with melatonin, it will get into your mitochondria and, in fact, do what melatonin does — neutralize free radicals and protect the mitochondria's function.” 

MELATONIN IS VITAL TO HEART ATTACK AND STROKE RECOVERY

Considering melatonin’s function within your mitochondria, and the fact that mitochondrial dysfunction is a hallmark of most chronic diseases, it makes sense that melatonin would be helpful against a number of different diseases, including the two most common — heart disease and cancer.

As explained by Reiter, one of the situations that is most devastating for the heart and brain is temporary interruption of the blood supply as a result of a cardiac arrest or stroke. This deprives the tissues of oxygen, and without oxygen, they rapidly deteriorate.

When the blood vessel reopens, which is called reperfusion, and oxygen flows back into those oxygen-deprived cells, this tends to be the time of maximum damage, as loads of free radicals are generated once the blood starts flowing again. 
“There's a large host of studies, including some in humans, where if you give melatonin to induce a heart attack in animals or an accidental heart attack in humans, you can preserve or reduce the amount of cardiac infarct, the amount of damage that occurs in the heart,” Reiter says. 
“There's a very famous cardiologist in the Canary Islands, professor Dominguez-Rodriguez, whom I worked with. And we, about three years ago, published a paper where we infused melatonin directly into the heart after the vessel was opened. That reduced cardiac damage by roughly 40%. 
The other thing that happens in a heart attack is that cardiac cells do not regenerate. Once you lose a cardiac cell, they're done ... and are replaced by fibrous tissue. Of course, fibrous tissue is not contractile, so you get heart failure. 
We just published a paper, again with this same cardiologist, showing that if people who are potentially suffering with heart failure because of a damaged heart, they survive better and longer if they are given melatonin on a regular basis. It's a small study ... but I think that would be a worthwhile field to exploit.” 

DOSE SUGGESTION FOR ACUTE HEART ATTACK

In terms of dosage, it’s difficult to translate doses used in animal studies onto human subjects. In animals, doses between 5 to 10 milligrams per kilogram of body weight are used. In humans, however, the dose is calculated on the basis of surface area rather than on body size, and that significantly reduces the amount of melatonin that you have to give.

That said, Reiter stresses that melatonin has no known toxic threshold, so even though we don’t know what the ideal dose is, we do know it’s safe even at high doses. Additionally, the timing of the dose will be important. The first dose should be taken immediately, but subsequent melatonin dosing should follow circadian biology, so around 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and before bed.
“If I had a heart attack and I had melatonin on my person, I would take melatonin,” Reiter says. “The question is how much? ... This is not a recommendation to any of your patients, but I would not be hesitant about taking 50 milligrams at the time, and some subsequently for the next 24 hours, even during the day. Because you don't want to lose any more heart cells than is absolutely necessary ...

I have suggested this a number of times. In other words, an emergency medical technician goes out, picks up a patient who has clearly a heart attack. I think on site, immediately, melatonin should be given intravenously rather than orally. It'd be difficult to give it orally. That would be my recommendation.”

EMERGENCY MEDICAL KIT FOR ACUTE HEART ATTACK OR STROKE

In cases of an acute heart attack or stroke (which have virtually identical tissue damage mechanisms: one affects the heart and the other your brain), I would also add methylene blue. Methylene blue is well-documented to be highly beneficial for reperfusion injuries, (2) especially if you do it right at the beginning of the event, because it augments cytochromes to allow the continued production of ATP even without the use of oxygen. 

Melatonin and methylene blue belong in every emergency medical kit. In cases of an acute heart attack or stroke, melatonin can help limit the damage, while methylene blue augments cytochromes to allow the continued production of ATP even without the use of oxygen, which also helps minimize cell death and tissue damage.

So, together, methylene blue and melatonin could act as a one-two punch if you've got a stroke or heart attack. They really should be part of every emergency kit.

As an interesting side note, melatonin can also be useful in people with Type 2 diabetes. Reiter notes he has diabetic colleagues who take 1 gram of melatonin daily to counteract the free radical damage caused by hyperglycemia. Keep in mind that melatonin does not treat the cause of the diabetes. It only helps to counteract the damage being caused.

HALF-LIFE AND BIOAVAILABILITY OF MELATONIN  

The half-life of melatonin in the blood is only about 40 minutes. Within cells, the half-life varies according to the level of oxidative stress present. If oxidative stress is high, the melatonin is destroyed much faster; if oxidative stress is low, it remains within the cell much longer.

Reiter also notes that in addition to being a free radical scavenger, all of melatonin’s metabolic kin — its active metabolites, such as N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine — are also excellent scavengers. While quickly used up in the presence of high oxidative stress, melatonin is also rapidly taken up when used orally, hence the suggestion to take multiple doses spread out.

Ideally, you’d want to use sublingual or intravenous melatonin, because it’ll enter your bloodstream much faster. Another option is to make your own rectal suppositories. If you swallow it, it needs to pass through and be metabolized by your liver.

MELATONIN IS ALSO A POTENT ANTIVIRAL 

In addition to its antioxidant potency, melatonin also has antiviral capacity. These two features combined is thought to be why it’s been so useful against COVID-19. 

“I'm going to give you a very specific example,” Reiter says. “Here's a local physician, Dr. Richard Neil, whom I have known for a number of years. When COVID-19 became common, he called me, we discussed it, he started giving 1 mg per kilogram of body weight (once a day) for about 5 days, at the time of diagnosis. He has now treated more than 2,000 patients, very successfully, with melatonin.

The importance of melatonin in reference to COVID is that it is not specifically for [the original Wuhan strain]. The variants, Delta, Omicron, they're viruses we think will respond. We currently have a paper in press where we showed that in animals, Zika virus toxicity is also prevented by melatonin, and we've checked four different coronaviruses in pigs.

That paper also shows that melatonin prevents the damage — the consequence — of those viruses.  I think [melatonin] is generally a quite good antiviral agent and should be considered useful. When President Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19, one of the molecules he was given was melatonin. Obviously, the physicians treating him knew this literature.”

So, to summarize, if you have symptoms of COVID-19, you could consider taking oral or sublingual melatonin 30 to 45 minutes before bedtime, first thing in the morning, at 10 a.m., and again at 4 p.m. You clearly want to avoid it a few hours before and after solar noon, as taking supplementation during that time will likely impair pineal nighttime melatonin secretion.

Reiter points out that slow-release melatonin has not been widely studied, and he generally doesn’t recommend it for that reason. 


MELATONIN FOR CANCER

Melatonin can also be useful in the prevention and treatment of cancer.  Reiter explains: 
“Cancer cells are clever. They do everything they can to permit their continued survival.  It seems counterintuitive, but what they do is prevent pyruvate from entering the mitochondria, and that reduces ATP production. But as a consequence of doing that, they accelerate something called glycolysis and that's very inefficient in producing ATP, but it does it very rapidly. So, then they have sufficient energy.

The importance of preventing pyruvate from entering the mitochondria, we now think is the fact that pyruvate is a precursor to something called acetyl coenzyme A. Acetyl coenzyme A is a cofactor for the enzyme that regulates melatonin production in the mitochondria.

So, by eliminating or preventing pyruvate from getting into the mitochondria, [the cancer cells] prevent or reduce melatonin production, because they don't allow the necessary cofactor to be produced. In other words, we predicted about four years ago that, in fact, the mitochondria of cancer cells would produce less melatonin.

We have subsequently shown that in two studies, both uterine cancers. Clearly, melatonin levels and the activity of the enzymes in the mitochondria of these types of cancer cells are at least about half what they would normally be. The prevention of pyruvate into the mitochondria, that's Warburg-type metabolism.

The other thing is the pyruvate is metabolized into lactic acid. It escapes the cell and produces an acidic environment for the cancer cell, and cancer cells like that acidic environment. So, if you can reduce the Warburg-type metabolism, you may be able to limit the growth of cancer cells and perhaps also the metastasis
 . . . 
Some cancer cells may only be part-time cancerous because [during nighttime] when they have high melatonin, then they avoid Warburg-type metabolism. The interesting thing about Warburg-type metabolism [is that] . . . many pathological cells, inflammatory cells, cells that are affected by amyloid beta in the brain, exhibit this specific type metabolism . . .

And we know that inflammatory cells — M2 and M1 inflammatory cells — can be converted back and forth by melatonin. The inflammatory cells can be prevented by giving them melatonin [because of] its effect on Warburg-type metabolism. So, Warburg type metabolism is common in many, many pathological cells.”

THE LINK BETWEEN METABOLIC FLEXIBILITY, MELATONIN, AND CANCER

One of the reasons why cancer is so prevalent likely has to do with the fact that 93% of Americans are metabolically inflexible (JACC 2022) and cannot seamlessly transition between burning carbs and fats for fuel. Glucose (sugar) is one of the primary fuels that most people have. Glucose has six carbons and is metabolized into pyruvate, which is a three-carbon molecule. Pyruvate, in turn, is metabolized in the mitochondria to acetyl-CoA.

The reason the Warburg-Effect works is that pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) inhibits the inflow of pyruvate into the mitochondria, so it cannot be converted into acetyl-CoA, and acetyl-CoA is not only needed in the production of melatonin but is also used to efficiently produce ATP in the mitochondria and is how glucose is used in the mitochondria.

Another source of acetyl-CoA is beta oxidation of fats, which breaks down the fat to the two-carbon molecule acetyl-CoA, which enters the mitochondria as an active transport molecule, courtesy of MCT (mono carboxylase transporter). My point here is that when you are metabolically inflexible, the Warburg Effect becomes massive. But if you're cardiometabolically healthy and can burn fat, you can effectively bypass that defect.

Prior to my interview with Reiter, I certainly knew that limiting carbs and preventing the Warburg effect was important in cancer treatment, but I hadn’t realized that one of the metabolic byproducts of acetyl-CoA was needed to produce melatonin. So, being metabolically flexible not only impairs the Warburg effect but also supplies melatonin to combat the excessive oxidative stress in cancer.

This is why I would strongly encourage each and every one of you to regularly engage in two activities the rest of your life. First, expose as much of your skin as you can to an hour of sunshine a day around solar noon.

Second, you have to eliminate all seed oils from your diet, as excess seed oils are the primary reason why most people are metabolically inflexible. While the average person’s consumption of these oils is around 25% to 30% of total daily calories, it should only be about 1% to 2% (mine is 1.5%).


WORD OF CAUTION

Just be careful, though, as using high-dose melatonin long term could be a prescription for disaster. This is because doses of over 5 to 10 mg are likely to draw out heavy metals like mercury and unless you are on a good detoxification program and using a sauna regularly these heavy metals could cause biological damage.