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Comment by dougmwne | Hacker News Reader

The discovery of the treatment in the methylene blue dye is quite fascinating. How exactly did someone figure that out for such a rare condition? And imagine being deep blue all your life and everyone knowing you as blue, then you take this blue pill and bam, you're pink as can be. Must have seemed like practical magic.

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Methylene blue was widely used in malaria treatment, and after its relative safety was figured out, ease of access meant doctors went nuts trying it out on all sorts of conditions. And it worked as a treatment for all sorts of things, and was issued to soldiers in the field through wwii. It's a MAOI and shows up in nootropic stacks and discussions all the time.

Makes you pee blue, can treat effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, etc. There were lots of opportunities for someone with blue skin to have encountered the stuff.

Methylene blue has a fascinating history in medicine. It was already well known as a treatment for methemoglobinemia however. It's a ready electron acceptor. It's used for a few other conditions today, without a lot of evidence.

Yves Klein used Methylene blue in the drinks at one of his shows to great effect... https://socks-studio.com/2019/11/23/iris-clert-yves-klein-th...

The general condition of methemoglobinemia isn't as rare as this family's particular genetic condition, so the methylene blue treatment was already known. I'm not sure when they first discovered that methylene blue can treat methemoglobinemia - methylene blue was discovered in 1876, but it does all sorts of things.

It's a known cure for Methemoglobinemia: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000562.htm

> And imagine being deep blue all your life and everyone knowing you as blue, then you take this blue pill and bam, you're pink as can be. Must have seemed like practical magic.

Almost sounds like homeopathy, without the dilution, that actually works.

Not really. This isn't like cures like. This is triggering a biological system to do something. There is a buildup of a substance that he body could break down but doesn't. So you do something to trigger the system into action. This is more like hydrating someone in order to trigger their kidneys to work harder and thereby flush out some other toxin.

So, not homeopathy?

I get their point, homeopathy has two bs gimmicks. The first is to use a substance that causes the ailment as a cure, the second is to replace that substance with water/sugar and the idea of the substance.

Using a blue substance to cure someone who's blue is similar to the first gimmick, but here they actually use the substance and medically tested it.

It has three gimmicks, the first is to never look at causes, only at symptoms.

Then use a substance that causes the same symptom (usually not the ailment, only one of the symptoms), and then dilute it away.

So it scores 2 out of 3. But the dilution part is important :)

For the sake of clarity: I will not stand on the side of homeopathy, ever. It's placebo effect marketing rather than evidence-based science and hence not worth my money.

I didn't think you did, but valid things can share traits with bullshit and still be valid things.

This is correct and too often ignored. Bullshit owns nothing:)

What about when placebo-based medicine offers better patient outcomes, for certain disorders? E.g., for sleep medicine without side effects? We used homeopathy for my daughters car sickness and it worked great.

Did you know stretching before a car trip prevents all but the worst car sickness? Both my chiropractor and my acupuncturist recommended it and I haven't suffered from car sickness since.

There, I saved you the cost of the water pills. You don't need costly, potentially dangerous additive laced medicine if you're just looking for the placebo effect.

Yeah, but she feels sick in the car. Then we give her a pill. There is nothing dangerous in homeopathy, that’s the dilution effect.

Another thread trending on the value of placebo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28887705

>There is nothing dangerous in homeopathy

Some of the pills are made using toxic fillers. It's not enough I'd panic over, you can get the placebo effect without ingesting anything shady/expensive.

Do you have a source for homeopathy being made from toxic filers?

I’d hypothesize that the more expensive the pill, the better the effect.

I can't find specifics about homeopathic fillers, but any pill not regulated by the FDA is likely to use cheap fillers that are often toxic. Vitamins are where you commonly hear about this, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_food_and_dietary...

I did find this, https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/10/fda-homeopathic-teet... which shows there is some risk, though again you're most likely fine.

>I’d hypothesize that the more expensive the pill, the better the effect.

For you, sure. For your daughter, I bet your confident recommendation is the most important aspect.

Placebo is very powerful and is actually validated by scientific research.

So when the conditions are here, as they seemingly were for your daughters, it's great.

Yet, homeopathy, when considered as a potent product, didn't help, because it is not potent. The conditions enabling the placebo effect did. And no one would complain about that :)

The problem arises when homeopathy is sold and marketed as potent _per se_.

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