Methylene blue helps your cells make more energy and calm your brain, so you don’t feel as hungry or tired during fasting.

Methylene blue helps liver cells in mice stay alive when they're damaged by certain drugs by giving them an alternate way to make energy, stopping harmful stress and cell death.

Methylene blue helps mitochondria, the energy factories in our cells, move electrons more smoothly so they don’t accidentally create harmful waste molecules called reactive oxygen species.

In a lab test with mouse brain cells, a chemical called methylene blue makes the energy-producing parts of the cells work harder without using energy to make ATP, while another chemical called azure I doesn’t do anything. This suggests methylene blue might be messing with how the cells normally control their energy production.

A chemical called Azure I, which comes from methylene blue, doesn’t fix the energy power plants in mouse brain cells—even though it’s better at blocking certain brain enzymes. This means it might work in other ways, not by helping cells make energy.

Scientists found that a blue dye called methylene blue can help fix a broken energy system in mouse brain cells, but a related chemical called azure I can't — meaning only the original dye can jump over a specific energy block.