Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
In another type of ALS mouse, methylene blue didn’t help them move better or change any of the abnormal brain proteins or inflammation markers that are linked to the disease.
Descriptive
Giving methylene blue to mice with a form of ALS didn't help them live longer, move better, or stop their nerve cells from dying, even though it was thought to help the brain.
A part of the rat brain called the ventromedial hypothalamus helps control eating when the rat is hungry, and dopamine signals through D1 receptors are part of how it works.
A certain type of brain chemical signal in the hunger center of fasted rats helps tell them to eat more.
The rats ate more because of the brain receptor change—not because they were moving around more or less.
When scientists turned on a specific type of brain receptor in the hunger center of fasted rats, the rats ate more food—and when they turned it off, the rats ate less.
With added olive extract, olive oil can be fried longer without breaking down into low-quality oil—especially at lower temperatures.
Quantitative
Frying olive oil too long breaks down its natural compounds and creates new ones—but adding olive extract slows this breakdown and even boosts total antioxidants for the first few hours.
Even with added extract, frying olive oil too long makes it lose its good taste—but the extract still makes it taste less rancid than plain oil.
When you add olive extract to frying oil, it helps keep more of the natural plant compounds that give olive oil its health benefits—even after long frying.
When you add a special olive extract to olive oil, the healthy antioxidants in it don’t break down as fast—even when you fry it for hours at high heat.
Adding a natural olive extract to olive oil helps it resist going rancid when used for deep frying at high heat for a long time—much longer than plain olive oil.
A tiny amount of methylene blue helps heart cells make energy better, but too much actually hurts them — it’s a classic case of 'less is more'.
Adding methylene blue doesn’t change how well heart cell power plants can hold onto calcium, meaning it doesn’t protect against the pore that can cause cell death under stress.
Heart cells from diabetic rats have weaker power plants that leak more harmful molecules than those from healthy rats, which matches what scientists expect in diabetes-related heart damage.
Methylene blue makes heart cell power plants produce more harmful molecules when using one fuel (glutamate/malate), but less when using another (succinate), showing its effect depends on what the cell is burning.
Adding a tiny amount of methylene blue to heart cell power plants makes them use oxygen more efficiently, no matter what fuel they're burning.
These brain cells only make mice want salt—not water or food—and don’t affect how much they move around.
If you block the salt taste receptors in a mouse’s mouth, it can’t tell it’s tasted salt—so its brain doesn’t stop craving salt, even if it’s had enough.
Mechanistic
The brain uses two different signals to control salt craving: one slow signal that says 'we need salt' and one fast signal that says 'you tasted salt, stop now'—and they work together to make the mouse eat just enough.
When the body is low on salt, special cells in the brainstem that detect this imbalance send a 'go' signal to the salt-craving neurons, turning them on.
When mice taste salt, a different group of brain cells that use a calming chemical (GABA) gets turned on and sends a 'stop' signal to the salt-craving cells, making them quiet down.
Mice stop wanting salt almost instantly when they taste it in their mouth—even before the salt gets into their body—and this happens because a specific brain signal turns off when salt is tasted.
When mice are low on salt, a specific group of brain cells makes them desperately want to eat salt—even if it tastes bad—and these cells also make the mice feel bad, so they do things to stop the feeling.