SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: What's the deal with blue people?

10:26Josh Clark:And the condition that they had is not a skin condition at all. It's actually a blood disorder, like you mentioned, and it's called medimoglobinemia. Is that pretty good?

10:37Chuck Bryant:Wow. So it's not meth? No. Okay. Oh, I'm glad you said it first then.

10:44Josh Clark:I actually took great pains today to look up between this and the other episode we're recording. Oh, yeah. Pronunciations.

10:51Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

10:52Josh Clark:And when you look at medimoglobinemia, that is 17 letters of, it's a mouthful of letters. Yeah, pure hell. And it's really one of those that I looked at over and over and just could not get it right in my head until I went and looked it up on the internet. And I was like, no, it's not so hard.

11:09Chuck Bryant:All right. Let me try. Let me try. Medimaglobinemia.

11:12Josh Clark:I think it's more of a T than a D.

11:16Chuck Bryant:Okay. What about a B? You want me to try that one next?

11:22Josh Clark:This is like the worst acting audition ever.

11:26Chuck Bryant:Medimaglobinemia. Let me give you another one.

11:28Josh Clark:What's my motivation here? to get through this episode. Okay, fair enough. So we're going to touch a little bit on melanin throughout this episode. But you remember melanin from our, I think, pretty good episode on sunscreen and suntans, right? And this is, you know, special cells in the body, in the skin make melanin. And melanin is responsible for coloring your skin. And there are all kinds of different melanin disorders, whether you have too much or too little, whether it will make your skin lighter or darker, or whether or not it happens in patches. I had a friend in Los Angeles with vitiligo.

12:09Josh Clark:I have a friend too. Oh, you do? Mm-hmm. Which leads to patches of light skin on the body. Isn't that what Michael Jackson claimed to have had too?

12:20Chuck Bryant:Yes.

12:21Josh Clark:Was that verified?

12:23Chuck Bryant:I don't know. I don't know either. I really don't know.

12:26Josh Clark:I just remember there was a big stink when that came out and everyone was like, yeah, right.

12:30Chuck Bryant:Well, the reason why it was like, really, you got vitiligo? Because it's usually patches, like the melanocytes, the melanin-producing cells just kind of poop out or crap out in an area. And it leaves like patches without pigment. Not your entire face without pigment. But who knows?

12:49Josh Clark:Well, I think what he said was that he bleached his skin to match the light patches was his reasoning.

12:56Chuck Bryant:Oh, well, that's fairly reasonable. You know, if you're self-conscious about vitiligo and you have a ton of money, you could do something like that. Who knows? Who knows?

13:07Josh Clark:Should we talk about skin color or should we take an awkward Michael Jackson break?

13:11Chuck Bryant:I think we just did. But the point is this that I think you're making, Chuck, is that changes in like your skin color typically have to do with a lack of or an overproduction of melanin, right? That's right. What we're talking about, metemoglobinemia, right? Yep. Is actually a blood disorder. It has nothing to do with the skin. It just shines through that super translucent skin that we have. Right. So what's going on here in the body? Oh, yeah. Okay.

13:43Josh Clark:So, you know. Are you surprised I'm asking you to do this?

13:47Chuck Bryant:I'm a little surprised. I thought we maybe tag team this one. But okay, okay. Okay. So you have like a pinkish hue to you typically being Caucasian because there's not a ton of melanin that's blocking the blood supply underneath in your tissues. It's kind of shining through and your blood is red. And the reason it's red, Chuck, is because.

14:15Josh Clark:the reason why blood is red? Well, remember in school they teach you that your blood is blue until you get cut and then it hits the air. Yeah, that's not true. And then it turns red. That's what you hear on the playground in elementary school. From dumb kids. But that is not true. And I bet you anything kids are still spreading that mistruth on the playground. Yeah.

14:33Chuck Bryant:It's got some staying power for sure as far as rumors go.

14:37Josh Clark:And you know what? My dad will sue your dad for all the money he's got. Did you guys threaten lawsuits? Sure. We were very litigious.

14:47Chuck Bryant:Kids did, though. It was very funny. We were like little Puritans in Salem town. That's right.

14:54Josh Clark:So blood is red. That was the question, right? Yeah. Yeah. Why is blood red? Right. Because I don't know we've talked about this before, but it's because our red blood cells have hemoglobin. It's a protein. And it gets its red color from something called heme. It's a compound that has an iron atom in there, and that iron atom is the key. That's what binds with oxygen and allows red blood cells to get oxygen all over the body. And that's sort of what makes us tick.

15:24Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it definitely is. I mean, that oxygen is super important, so we want to have super red-rich hemoglobin blood, right? Our bodies also produce something else called metemoglobins, I guess is how you would pronounce it. That is not how I've been pronouncing it in my head. But these metemoglobins are basically the same thing as hemoglobins, but they have a different kind of iron attached to them. The iron they have is, like, there's really no other way to put it. Well, actually, there's plenty of other ways to put it. But one way you could put it is that it's rusted. It's oxidized iron, which means that it's missing an electron that it would need to bind to oxygen, which means it's useless for transporting oxygen through the blood.

16:07Chuck Bryant:So if you have a bunch of metemoglobin built up in your blood, your blood can reasonably turn blue. You also may have some problems breathing because you don't have any oxygen in your blood. Although that's not true. I'm sorry. You would be able to breathe perfectly fine, but it wouldn't clear up necessarily the lack of oxygen in your blood because it's on a blood level rather than something to do with your lungs.

16:32Josh Clark:Yeah, that was my one question because doctor after doctor has confirmed that metibaglomanemia doesn't present any health issues. Yeah. But how can that be possible that your blood is having trouble carrying oxygen through your body and it doesn't matter?

16:48Chuck Bryant:I had a really hard time with that too. And the best I could come up with as far as an answer, which is not definitive, but the best I could come up with is that there's a threshold where your blood will turn blue, where you have enough metemoglobins in there that it's blue, but there's not so many metemoglobins that you're actually having trouble with your oxygen in your body. So it can turn blue long before you actually suffer from the effects of low oxygen. Does that make sense?

17:20Josh Clark:Yeah, I guess it makes sense. And isn't the threshold to turn your skin blue like a really low percentage even?

17:27Chuck Bryant:Like 1 % of metemoglobins. If your blood is 1 % metemoglobin, you can start to turn blue, right? So, it doesn't take very much, which means that you have 99 % of the globins in your blood are hemoglobin, which means you're still able to get all the oxygen you need. You just have maybe a little less than somebody else. That's my best guess from what I saw. And I think at this point in our understanding of metemoglobinemia, it's as good as anybody's.

17:57Josh Clark:Well, that sounds like a perfect place for a break. Okay. And we'll be right back to talk a little bit more about this and other interesting blood conditions. Right after this.

18:17Chuck Bryant:What if your soda actually did something for you?

18:20Josh Clark:Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. Skypot Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste. Skypot Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Skypot Protein Soda now at Target or King Soopers. I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. You know what I love about cooking? The endless inspiration, sharing exceptional flavors, and of course, the best ingredients. I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever.

19:01Josh Clark:There's the everyday essential, garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir-fry to even grilled meats. Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com. Warning, the following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grown-ups.

19:41Josh Clark:A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. E, F, G, H. Hurry up and don't be late. E, F, G, H.

19:58Chuck Bryant:Hurry up and don't be late.

20:01Josh Clark:Lingo Kids. Only suitable for kids. If it gets stuck in mom's head, that's not our problem. Lingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download now for free.

20:18Chuck Bryant:So, Chuck, we were talking about metemoglobinemia. And the reason, like I think one of us said earlier, that the body naturally produces these things, these metemoglobins. But we also produce an enzyme that can convert excess metemoglobins into hemoglobin. And it's got a doozy of a name, which I just love. May I take this one? Yes. This enzyme is called reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cytochrome B5 reductase. One of the great all-time names. What's its nickname? Sparky? It has no nickname. You have to say the entire thing every time. And so this enzyme, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cytochrome B5 reductase, is actually capable of converting the iron from its ferric state in metemoglobins into its ferrous state, which is capable of binding with oxygen, like the kind that's found in hemoglobin.

21:19Chuck Bryant:So for all intents and purposes, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cytochrome B5 reductase is capable of converting metemoglobins into hemoglobin, and most of us are able to do that. But if you're like a fugate and you have that rare genetic condition where both parents donated that mutation to you and you develop metemoglobinemia, but there's some reduced amount of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cytochrome B5 reductase, which means that that metemoglobins that you naturally produce are able to build up and accumulate in your blood. And when they do that, that's how you start to turn blue.

21:59Chuck Bryant:That's how you cross that 1 % threshold.

22:02Josh Clark:That's right. And this is one of the rare times where you can actually have a genetic condition that's pretty easily solved. And in this case, it's just a pill. And the guy who figured this out has sort of an interesting story in his own right. His name is Madison Cowine or Cowine? Cowine? I'm going with Cowine. Cowine? Cowine.

22:26Chuck Bryant:Cowine.

22:27Josh Clark:I'm going with Cowine.

22:28Chuck Bryant:C-A-W-E-I-N, Cowween. Although I like cow wine. That doesn't sound like it'd be tasty, but I'll bet it gives you a pretty good buzz.

22:38Josh Clark:He was the grandson of a pretty famous at the time poet out of Kentucky. And Madison was the third of the Madisons. And this is just a side note, very sad and interesting. His wife was poisoned and murdered by poison. Oh, no. In the 1960s, and no one was ever caught and charged with a crime, and it kind of remains one of Kentucky's sort of biggest cold cases.

23:07Chuck Bryant:Wow, I did not see that one coming.

23:09Josh Clark:Yeah, he and his wife and this other couple were out drinking all night, supposedly just got sloshed. So, the 60s. At a country club. He, Madison, didn't even make it home. I think he stayed the night there. but the other man, the man from the other couple drove his wife home, apparently just dropped, they had another nightcap and she woke up dead. Well, didn't wake up dead. She died. And they thought it was just, you know, alcohol or some natural cause, but then they found these two like little needle pricks in her.

23:42Chuck Bryant:Wow.

23:42Josh Clark:Where they think she was, I guess, given a shot to pass out and then poisoned. And I can't remember the poison. It was some sort of like acid or something.

23:53Chuck Bryant:Wow.

23:53Josh Clark:But yeah, really, really interesting. Neither here nor there as far as this goes. But that's the sad story of Dr. Madison Cowwine's wife. Was he a suspect? Because I would have suspected him. I don't think so because he wasn't even there. That's the first thing I thought. But apparently it was pretty verified that he slept it off at the country club, I guess. Crazy.

24:15Chuck Bryant:Because, I mean, one of the things that he became famous for, if not the thing he became famous for, was injecting people with some fairly weird stuff. I know. Isn't that weird? Yeah. It is weird. You're not buying it. Nah, I don't want to, like, cast aspersions on somebody. I don't know enough about the story, but that's just very odd, especially... You're like, judging from this 90-second story... Right, exactly. I can conclusively solve this case. I've seen enough law and order to know that the husband almost always did it.

24:46Josh Clark:Well, that is probably true, but probably not in this case. But at any rate, he was a hematologist at U at University of Kentucky. And he heard about these people throughout the world and really wanted to kind of get to the bottom of this when a couple of them, well, I don't think these were fugates, but Patrick and Rachel Ritchie. I guess, you know, it happened in some other family. I know that Combs is.

25:11Chuck Bryant:We knew a Combs from Kentucky. We had a friend that we worked with for a little while. Oh, really? He never struck me as blue, yeah. He never struck you as blue? But I wonder if he is related to the Combses. Oh, who knows? Which would make him buy somehow a Fugate. Because, again, these families in the Fugate area were all, if you went back far enough, Fugates.

25:34Josh Clark:Right, exactly. All right, so these people walk into his office and what happened?

25:37Chuck Bryant:So here's the thing. Like, they didn't walk into his office. He went and found them. I read an article about him, and he became maybe a little obsessed with finding these people, wanted to know what the heck was going on. So he actually went out in the woods and would wait for them. And every once in a while, I would see one, and he'd chase them, telling them to stop. And, of course, they would run off. So he figured out another way to do it. He moved to Hazard County near Troublesome Creek, and he started asking around at clinics, like, had anybody ever treated a blue patient? And he finally struck gold, blue gold, when he spoke to one nurse at a clinic that said, yeah, this one woman came in with blue skin and she was really self-conscious about her skin.

26:18Chuck Bryant:She came to the back door, was really just kind of meek and embarrassed. But, yeah, we've treated a blue person before. So, Cowain basically hung around this clinic until more blue people came in. And this is where he met the Richie siblings.

26:34Josh Clark:Yeah, so he started to dig into their family a little bit. It became pretty obvious to him that it was a genetic disorder. And he started digging around other stories around North America and found an Inuit population in Alaska who had the same condition. I'm just going to call it this condition now. I think we've said it enough. Sure. Or at least I have. Yeah. And he said, well, you know, these people were interbreeding a lot because they were very remote as well. And so he said, I think we understand the problem here. How do we fix it?

27:09Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I don't know where he got this idea, but he used something called methylene blue, which was already in wide use. It's used to stain tissue because it affects some cells differently than others. It was a malarial treatment, which malaria can actually produce metemoglobinemia. I'm suddenly having trouble saying it because we haven't been practicing lately. And what it does is it goes in and it interacts with the reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cytochrome B5 reductase and basically gives it a boost and helps convert all of that excess metemoglobins into hemoglobins in patients with metemoglobin anemia.

28:00Chuck Bryant:And so I don't know where he got the idea, but he tried it and apparently injected the Ritchie kids with it, and they stopped being blue, like, almost on the spot.

28:11Josh Clark:Yeah, like minutes later, they returned to a, you know, a standard color. and I mean they were overjoyed like could you imagine being like this your whole life getting a shot and looking in the mirror a few minutes later and you're like oh my gosh it's like it's gone.

28:28Chuck Bryant:It's actually really sweet because they were very self-conscious the whole family I mean this family like retreated to the woods to like people didn't know where they lived and they lived like five miles away from them and knew that there was this blue family still had no idea where they lived it was like that's how far they retreated from society because they were that self-conscious so yeah I'm sure it was a pretty joyous occasion for them.

28:50Josh Clark:There's going to be a movie about this at some point, right?

28:52Chuck Bryant:I can't believe there's not. There was a very famous interview with Kyle Wayne in a magazine called Science 82. And there's also a really famous painting that somebody did. And it was just kind of lost to history who did it. And I read this article. I can't remember what it was on. But this person tracked down the artist, the initial artist, and got to see the original. Because it's been scanned so many times, it's really lost a step. but the original is apparently really something to see.

29:18Josh Clark:Should we say the quote that Cowain had in that Science 82 article? Totally. He said, when they walked into the office, he said, they were bluer than hell. Very Kentucky. Yeah, totally. All right, so over time, Fugate started moving away. Like some of the younger population of the family got out of Hazard County. And it's so hard not to make Dukes of Hazard jokes. I've been just sidestepping the whole time.

29:46Chuck Bryant:You've been doing really great. Thank you.

29:48Josh Clark:But they started to move away over time. And basically, you know, that's going to stop the interbreeding and that's going to make fewer and fewer blue babies. And as of 2012, I think some were still blue, but not today.

30:03Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I think now that there's a treatment, an easy treatment, because they don't even have to be injected anymore. Like if you're blue and you don't want to be blue, you just take a methylene blue pill once a day. And it goes in. Apparently, once you excrete it out, the methylene blue, you go back to being blue. So you have to take it daily. But I'll bet there's members of that family now, and I'm just guessing here, but that are proudly blue. Now that they know that they don't have to be blue, some of them I'll bet make a choice to be blue as kind of like a pride in their family heritage. I'm guessing here.

30:37Josh Clark:Well, the thing I saw that there was one, and that was the one in 2012 that was still blue.

30:43Chuck Bryant:Like by choice?

30:44Josh Clark:I think so, yeah. Just didn't take the pill. Gotcha.

30:47Chuck Bryant:Wow, that's neat.

30:48Josh Clark:But not today anymore. So this is not the only way you can get bluish or any, you know, I guess silvery skin is another thing that comes into play here with this next disorder. And this is one called argyria. And some people are bluish. Some people are silver. If you've looked up, you know, blue people or silver people online, you've no doubt seen Paul Carrison. They called him Papa Smurf. And he is all over the Internet as one of the more famous cases of Egeria.

31:25Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and he was kind of emerged as, I don't know if a cautionary tale is right because that was not his purpose. but he whether he meant to or not he served as a cautionary tale about taking colloidal silver because that is what turned him blue and it didn't just turn his skin blue it turned his mucous membranes blue so if he like flashed his teeth his gums were blue, the inside of his mouth was blue, the inside of his nose was blue he was blue, blue in hell as Kyle Wayne would probably put it that's right and he did it because he saw an article about how silver ions basically restored some cut flower back to life again.

32:07Chuck Bryant:And he thought, well, that'd be really something to see what it can do on a human body. I want to be a fresh daisy. Right. And he wasn't the only person experimenting at the time. Like, apparently for a while it was an over-the-counter drug. We'd been using silver for a very long time. But he was somebody who used it every single day. He was drinking like a 10-ounce drink of colloidal silver. He figured out how to basically make his own colloidal silver potion, and he also rubbed it on his face too. And so in very short order, he started to turn blue because that is definitely a consequence of using silver too much, of overexposure to silver.

32:47Josh Clark:That's right. And this can happen if you work in like a silver mine or something. Right. Like it can be one of the side effects of mining in silver mines.

32:55Chuck Bryant:I also saw that in the old time, not even that old, but just pre-digital photography processing, photograph processing, you could actually. Old timey? Yeah. You know, the 80s. Yeah. You could actually develop argyria from exposure to the silver dust that was used to expose photographic plates. I think prior to the 80s. I don't know when they stopped using that. I don't either.

33:22Josh Clark:I spent a lot of times in dark rooms as a kid because of my dad. Because you were bad? Yeah, go in there, turn on that red light, and sit there and think about what you've done. No, my dad was an amateur photographer. Well, I guess in my professionally sold stuff. But he did his own developing, and I learned how to do it and did it some through high school and then kind of quit doing it. It was a lot of fun, though. Dark rooms are very, like, peaceful places. Is that right? Yeah, just, you know, they're dark, obviously. Sure. And you're in there for a long period of time, and it's just very nice, usually by yourself.

33:57Josh Clark:But unless you're in a teen romance movie, and then, you know, the cute girl's in there with you.

34:02Chuck Bryant:Well, I always associate them with the murderer finally coming into focus, and they happen to be standing right next to the photographer who's developing it. So to me, dark rooms are very tense, scary places.

34:15Josh Clark:Like as the photo paper, like, comes into focus.

34:18Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

34:19Josh Clark:Oh, very tense.

34:20Chuck Bryant:It shows the calls coming from inside the dark room. That's right.

34:26Josh Clark:Where were we? Okay, so what causes this is an excess of silver ions in your body. Right. And when they're exposed to light, they react by forming dark deposits on the skin that end up looking silverish. And the bad news about this is once you've got it, it's there. You can't take a pill and get rid of it.

34:44Chuck Bryant:No, it's irreversible. well, we don't have a way to remove excess silver from the tissues in the human body. And that's all it is. It's just it builds up. Normally, the body can excrete, you know, small amounts of silver that we're exposed to from like, you know, touching silver or snorting silver, that kind of stuff. What? You know, like we pee it out, we poop it out, and we get rid of it. But if we overcome that threshold and our silver ingestion exceeds our ability to excrete it, it starts to build up in the tissue. And so if you're drinking your own 10-ounce colloidal silver homebrew every single day, you're going to overwhelm your body's ability to excrete silver very quickly, and it's going to build up and build up and build up, and pretty soon you're going to be blue or silver blue.

35:34Josh Clark:That's right. And if you look up images of Karrison, you're probably also going to find pictures of Stan Jones, a libertarian politician in Montana, who around Y2K said, you know what, I think things are going to go south and we're not going to have any antibiotics. So I'm going to start making my own, again, colloidal silver solution. Yeah. And drink that stuff. And then there was a teacher in Brooklyn, too, named Rosemary Jacobs, who very sadly, I think, got nasal drops with silver when she was a kid. And she was sort of, not sort of, she was very silver for life. Yes, she was.

36:10Chuck Bryant:So, these people, again, have proved to be cautionary tales to most people who are like, oh, that's what happens if you take too much silver. I'm not going to take colloidal silver supplements over the counter or anything like that. I'm just going to steer clear of silver altogether. Because one of the problems is there's not a lot of peer-reviewed evidence, if any, that suggests that silver has any beneficial effect when taken internally, right? It is actually antimicrobial. It's pretty clever to use silver, like, in the pre-scientific days. But there's nothing that says, like, yes, if you drink a colloidal silver homebrew, it's going to have any effect on your life.

36:54Chuck Bryant:or your health. And in fact, it might actually turn you blue. Despite this, people still take colloidal silver pretty frequently. Apparently, Alex Jones touts it. Gwyneth Paltrow touts it. Dr. Oz touts it. And that's, you know, if it's not actually harming you, there doesn't seem to be any harm from it, aside from potentially irreversibly turning blue. But there's a larger harm that I saw chuck to society in general, in that silver is an antimicrobial of last resort. That is, they're figuring out how to use it against antibiotic-resistant bugs like MRSA. Silver will get in there and even kill MRSA.

37:38Chuck Bryant:But that silver resistance may be developed in bugs by all these people taking colloidal silver supplements and drinking colloidal silver homebrews and stuff like that, that it's actually creating silver-resistant microbes, which is not a good thing for anybody. All right.

37:58Josh Clark:Well, let's take our second break. Good? Yes. And we'll talk a little bit more about colloidal silver right after this.

38:13Josh Clark:What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. Sky Pot Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste. Sky Pot Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pot Protein Soda now at Target or King Soopers. I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. You know what I love about cooking? The endless inspiration, sharing exceptional flavors, and of course, the best ingredients. I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever.

38:57Josh Clark:There's the everyday essential, garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir fry to even grilled meats. Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com. Warning, the following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grown-ups.

39:37Josh Clark:A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. A-E-C-D, in the morning brush your teeth. E-F-G-H, hurry up and don't be late. E-F-G-H, hurry up and don't be late. Lingo Kids, only suitable for kids. If it gets stuck in mom's head, that's not our problem. Lingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download now for free.

40:14Josh Clark:All right. So you mentioned earlier that kind of in passing that colloidal silver had been used pre, you know, mainstream medical science coming on board. And it's really true. And they were kind of on to something in that, like you said, there were, there are some antimicrobial properties. So people like Pliny the Elder, Cyrus the Great, they both touted the use of silver. monks in the Middle Ages used silver nitrate to treat ulcers and burns. And it was used a lot. It's kind of, in a way, before we had real antibiotics, one of the first antibiotics.

40:51Chuck Bryant:Yes. Again, externally, it messes up microbes. And we're not exactly sure, even still today, what the mechanism is. The guesses are that it somehow penetrates the membrane of bacteria and prevents it from replicating properly, or it does like some one, two punches on enzymes that the microbes need to survive, but that it will leave your human skin cells alone. It just attacks microbes weirdly, bacteria specifically. So yeah, it was like an early antibiotic, and it actually stayed in use for a long time. Nowadays, you'll find it in like wound dressings. Sometimes sutures will be coated in silver.

41:39Chuck Bryant:Replacement joints, artificial joints will have some sort of silver component to it to protect against infection. But we were using them internally for a really long time, up until the 60s even. I think babies got like silver eye drops when they were born, which I had not heard of until, you know, yesterday.

41:59Josh Clark:I hadn't either. Yeah, silver nitrate to prevent eye infections. But then they found out it can actually cause eye damage and burn the skin. So they really worked on just sort of, what's the word I'm looking for, when you make something less potent by mixing it with water. Dilute it? Diluting it. Right on the tip of my tongue. You did it. No, you did it. So they learned how to dilute it. But the problem with diluting it in a formula is it wasn't an exact science. Like they didn't know exactly how much silver was still going to be active. And so, you know, you couldn't really use it as a medicine anymore because it was either too weak to do anything or it was so much that you risk turning blue.

42:46Josh Clark:So eventually they just scrapped it as a medicine and said, I think in 1999 the FDA said, this isn't a medicine. You can't advertise it as such. So they said, all right, we'll just say it's a supplement. and just move it to the shelf, you know, four feet away. And the FDA said, no. And that's what happened. And you can still get this stuff. That's where, you know, that's why Gwyneth Paltrow uses it.

43:06Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And I mean, like, again, it's one of those things where it's like, yes, it makes sense. Silver has antimicrobial properties. There's probably some microbes in your body you don't want. So take some silver and see if it works. But again, there's just not any peer-reviewed evidence that backs this up. That's not necessarily to say that it doesn't work just because there isn't peer-reviewed evidence that backs it up doesn't also necessarily mean in the same breath that there's plenty of peer-reviewed evidence that says it doesn't work. I'm not suggesting anybody take the stuff. I'm just saying there's not peer-reviewed evidence to back up that it actually does anything.

43:42Chuck Bryant:And if you do take it, again, you risk permanently, irreversibly turning blue.

43:49Josh Clark:Yeah, and I should point out, I don't know anything about Gwyneth Paltrow's current usage, but her appearance on Dr. Oz in 2013 was when she touted it. She may have given it up. Who knows?

44:01Chuck Bryant:Who knows? Paul Carison never gave it up, though, Chuck. He died in 2013 as well, same year that Gwyneth Paltrow outed herself as a silver user. And Paul Carison, he apparently used colloidal silver, that homebrew he made, up until the end. Like he never stopped, even though he apparently retreated from the public eye because he was tired of being treated like a freak or a weirdo. And had some rough years toward the end, apparently after he went public. But he still kept up with the colloidal silver, although that doesn't seem to have been linked to his death. He was also a really heavy smoker for many years, and he suffered a heart attack and a stroke.

44:44Josh Clark:Yeah. I mean, I guess his point was probably, well, I'm already blue. Yeah. Like, why stop now?

44:50Chuck Bryant:Can't get much bluer. So what else you got?

44:54Josh Clark:Well, I just thought we'd wind it up with this little kind of sidebar. This doesn't really have anything to do with being blue or silver, But I thought it was an interesting find that they basically determine there's something called repigmenting that has happened to people to go their skin both darker and lighter that has nothing to do. And it's funny. This article kept calling it intermarriage. What they mean is, you know.

45:21Chuck Bryant:E-er, e-er. Yeah.

45:24Josh Clark:What they mean is having sex and having babies of two different skin colors. But they keep calling it intermarriage, which I guess is, you know, very sweet.

45:33Chuck Bryant:It's just such a lovely way to put it.

45:34Josh Clark:It is. But they know that repigmenting happens regardless of intermarriage. But what they found recently is that this has happened a lot faster than anyone thought. And we're talking about 100 generations or as little as 100 generations, which is a long time. But over the course of human history, it's not that long.

45:56Chuck Bryant:It's potentially, yeah, it's not that long. Usually a generation is chalked up at about 20 years. So we're talking as little as 2 ,000 years. Groups that were once lily white went back to being dark and groups that were dark can turn into a lily white population. And that it's just basically more evidence that race is strictly a social construct. Skin color has nothing to do with anything but the amount of melanin that our genes tell our bodies to produce, which is triggered by the amount of UV exposure that we have over something like 100 generations.

46:33Josh Clark:Right. And so if your family lineage moves from a place that has lots of UV near the equator to a place that doesn't have much daylight or vice versa, your body is going to adapt and melanin production is going to change. And over time, your entire family's skin color can change.

46:51Chuck Bryant:Yeah, because we actually need UV, right? But we just need a certain amount of it. If you have too much, you can get skin cancer. Apparently, it can have reproductive issues. If you get too little, it can also have issues on your bone because we use UV to produce vitamin D, which we use for strong bones, bone density. So our bodies have figured out how to kind of adjust depending on that UV exposure by producing or slowing down melanin production. That's it. Pretty amazing. Pretty neat. But it is surprising that it's, well, actually, it's not that surprising that it can happen over 100 generations or 2 ,000 years because the body is very responsive to its environment.

47:30Chuck Bryant:We adapt very easily. So, it's not particularly surprising, although it is neat.

47:36Josh Clark:Yeah. I mean, it surprised the scientists. I think they just thought it was quicker than they anticipated.

47:41Chuck Bryant:So, if you're a racist, just stop and think that somewhere down your family line, there is a white person or a black person. Ha ha. That's right. Or in the future. Yeah, that's true. That's right. So take that. You got anything else? I have nothing else. All right. Well, if you want to know more about blue people or colloidal silver or pigmentation, go start reading up on it on the internet. And thanks again to all the great sites that you found in putting this really good episode together, Chuck. And since I complimented Chuck's episode putting together skills, it's time for Listener Mail.

48:17Josh Clark:I'm going to call this one of the many thanks we got for the M not NRA but the Mr. Na episode this is one I think for both of us we were super stoked to do and in retrospect very proud of we're stoked we were super stoked not just stoked there's no way to say stoked without sounding like a bro

48:43Chuck Bryant:no, no way at all

48:45Josh Clark:That stinks too, because I'm not a bro, but I do like saying stoked.

48:48Chuck Bryant:That's fine. Just say stoked. Be loud and proud like the last remaining blue fugate.

48:53Josh Clark:So this is from Mark, and it was a really long one that I'm going to sort of summarize the first part, is that Mark works in healthcare information technology and had a rough go of it over the past couple of years, like so many people, working alone and listening to our show, which he said helped quite a bit, losing some close friends to COVID and seeing all this up close and personal. So Mark had a tough time. So he says this, after working for almost two years on the COVID-19 problem, the last thing I wanted to hear was your podcast about Mr. Na vaccines. When I saw the topic pop up on my player, took a deep breath and decided to listen anyway.

49:36Josh Clark:I knew almost everything you shared on the podcast, but became enthralled in the recap of this amazing story. To my surprise, I was again brought to tears with a recognition, one that you two share of these brilliant helpers who use their gifts for the benefit of all humanity. At the risk of making you blush, you two are part of those helpers. You presented this Mr. Na episode with a childlike curiosity and relatable simplicity that anyone with doubts on taking the vaccine would reconsider. I can't believe that I have to say this, but facts help, and fact sharers are helpers. I might also add that letting go of any biases to let your curiosity take hold is heroic.

50:17Josh Clark:And that is from Mark. And boy, I'm going to read that one another hundred times today. Yeah, just print it out and fold it up and keep it under your pillow. Yes, thank you, Mark. He wanted his last name to be withheld. But appreciate the work you've done, Mark, and hang in there.

50:31Chuck Bryant:Yeah, same to you, Mark. And that was very high praise. Thank you very much for it. It means a lot to hear something like that. One other thing, though, Chuck, that Mark reminded me of, that people with metemoglobinemia actually can blush blue. Oh, so they get bluer? Yeah. Isn't that neat? I guess that makes sense. Thanks for that, too, Mark. Even though you had no idea you were setting us up for it, you did. So you're just basically an altogether great person. If you want to be a great person like Mark and write in to let us know whatever you want to let us know, we want to hear from you. You can wrap it up and spank it on that bottom until it's blue in the face and send it off to StuffPodcasts at iHeartRadio.com.

51:18Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

51:34Josh Clark:What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. Sky Pop Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target or Walmart. Warning, the following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grown-ups. A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. E-F-G-H Hurry up and don't be late E-F-G-H Hurry up and don't be late Lingo Kids, only suitable for kids. If it gets stuck in mom's head, that's not our problem.

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52:18Josh Clark:Everything kids love. Download now for free. This episode is supported by FX's The Drop, a snowfall saga. Wanda and Leon are back, but this time they're chasing a different kind of legacy. as West Coast rap begins to take over 90s Los Angeles. Wanda is betting on a new generation of artists. But in a city where every opportunity comes with a price, they'll have to decide what they're willing to risk to leave their mark. FX is the drop. Now streaming on Hulu. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.