• Mood: impressed

Blue food dye heals spinal injuries... and dyes you blue.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that rats injected with the food dye Brilliant Blue G recover enough from severe spinal injuries to be able to walk with a limp.  Rats in a control group that did not receive the injection were permanently paralyzed.  Right after a spinal injury, the injured area floods with energy-rich ATP which is supposed to rapidly repair the damaged cells, but it also burns out and kills living neurons in the area.  Brilliant Blue G blocks ATP from killing the living cells and from making the injury worse.  It also turns the subject blue, but it's better than the alternative.  If you happen to be a rat, it might make you cuter.  Brilliant Blue G is the dye used in blue M&Ms and Gatorade, which prompted The Onion to say, "If Christopher Reeve were alive today, I'm sure he'd be the first to say, 'Blue M&Ms? Are you fucking kidding me?'"

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/28/spinal.injury.blue.dye/