Dr. John Lieurance Reveals The Crazy Story of His Leg Amputation, Dives Into The Latest Methylene Blue Protocols & Tells You Why You Should Be Breathing Carbon Dioxide (& More!)

Ben Greenfield. And on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast.

I've been on quite a journey in the last 7 months, and it's been probably one of the most difficult, painful, challenging situations of my life.

Wow. Is this a— this a below-the-knee amputation?

Yes.

Okay. Wow. How are you dealing with that mentally? I mean, it's got to be— I can't imagine. I mean, it has to be— an odd experience to have that part of your body gone.

Yeah, it's, it's very, very trippy. There's, there's a part of me in my heart that feels like this is my path, that this is, this was meant to be and it's for a purpose.

Welcome to The Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and Alright, I got 4 Pete guests on the show.

At least, John, I think we're roughly saying it's 4 times. It sounds about right.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's about right. Yeah. Well, if you count how many times you've like referenced stuff, that might be like 100.

You get a lot of shoutouts, bro. You do because you do a lot of crazy stuff. For those of you who are not familiar with my guest, his name is John Laurence. John's an author, he's a physician, he's a lecturer. I call him Blue Man. As a matter of fact, the show notes for today's show where you can go and listen to all our other episodes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/BlueMan because amongst many other things. He's kind of one of the experts out there on methylene blue. He even has a whole book called "Methylene Blue: Silver Bullet." He's also the guy to introduce me to, for better or worse because I still get some crap about this, the high, high-dose melatonin sledgehammer that I use typically via suppository when I'm out traveling. And, John is just up to a ton. He's got this massive How many thousand square foot is your big biohacking facility down there in Sarasota, John?

We're about 20,000.

Yeah, 20,000 square feet of just all the craziest toys and IVs and biohacks you've ever seen. Well worth a little visit to the Disneyland of health down there. So, John, it's been a long time coming to have you on. I know you've had a very interesting past few months that we will get into in terms of you nearly losing a body part. And, we're going to talk about that. But, before we do, I just want to jump right into this methylene blue thing because there was a big article that came out. It was on a website I follow called GreenMedInfo called the Blue Brain Effect. I'll link to it in the shownotes, but the image in the video is like a brain dyed blue and the article goes into how methylene blue is staining tissues, causing issues. I sent it over to you. I wanted to get your take on it, but can you walk through— I realize this question might rabbit hole a little bit— what that article was saying about Methylene Blue in terms of its effects on the brain.

Yeah, I can't count how many people sent that, and there's been a few other people that have either done videos or articles that are against Methylene Blue. And, you know, each time I review these, these, these items, I just can't find anything that really is concrete proof. You know, it's, it's almost like people are trying to get clicks by being against something that's really popular. I've just seen an absolute explosion. And you and I got into methylene blue, I mean, what, probably in 2021 or something. I was first introduced to it, I want to say, like 15 years ago and found it to be one of— incredibly powerful tool in the arsenal as a naturopath and chiropractic neurologist treating a lot of brain conditions. And also in the biohacking community, it's one of the, one of the things that, you know, you can almost guarantee that you give somebody and they're going to come back and say, hey, I really felt better, I felt stronger, I felt like I had more endurance, I had an improved mood. And when you look at the research with, with, uh, Methylene Blue, it's just incredible. I mean, everything from neural protection to— it's got antimicrobial effects, it enhances the mitochondria in a way that no other molecule has been shown, where it's like all four of the complexes within the mitochondria are increased on an average about 30%. So, it's been referenced as the magic bullet as a substance that has these far-reaching benefits to the body yet leaves the body unharmed. But so, they showed this picture, they did an autopsy with some individuals that had IV methylene blue, high doses of methylene blue, and the brain was blue and they also had some pictures of some hearts. And they're referencing this as if this equals toxicity. They also talk about the synthetic origin of methylene blue, which we should get into just a little bit. But what, you know, and these people that are writing it, they're great individuals. I mean, they put out some great content with regards to natural health.

The guy's name that runs the website's Sayer Ji, right?

Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of friends in common, and I know the guys really involved in politics, and I really have a deep respect. But there's some really complex chemistry involved with methylene blue, and it's very, very difficult unless you really put your time into it. And the thing that you really have to appreciate with methylene blue is that it actually is an oxidant. It's an oxidant, and it goes between being an oxidant and an antioxidant, where it goes between methylene blue and something called leukomethylene blue.

And just to clarify super quick to make sure we get terminology right for people listening in, when you say it can act as an oxidant and an antioxidant, this means that within something like the mitochondria, it can both donate electrons in terms of its reducing or its antioxidant capacity and it can accept electrons.

Exactly. Yeah, which is really incredible. It's like a pitcher and a catcher with this thiazine ring and this amine group, they just bounce the electrons back and forth. But not only that, methylene blue is a brilliantly blue salt and it reflects blue and it absorbs red. So we can utilize that with photon therapy, you know, anywhere from laser therapy to like all the red light therapy people are doing. You can actually get an increased benefit by— it kind of acts like a sponge to suck these photons into the mitochondria, which is where they do the most good. But kind of back to this idea of this blue brain, right? So, yes, your brain, you want that. Brain has a lot of mitochondria. Methylene blue, for whatever reason, God made it where it just has this affinity for the mitochondria. So, the mitochondria suck them in, suck it in like a sponge. But eventually, your body's either going to metabolize it or almost all of it is going to eventually get converted into leukomethylene blue. And actually, the leukomethylene blue is quite— a lot of the benefit is actually from that leukomethylene blue. And you can actually utilize— there's studies that are done just primarily on the reduced form of methylene blue. If you take methylene blue in water and you add vitamin C to that water, you'll actually see the water turn clear. It's pretty cool.

Yeah, it is interesting. I actually know some manufacturers that make methylene blue and it's got about a 1:1 ratio of vitamin C to methylene blue and it's not as blue and it doesn't turn your mouth as dark. I'm surprised more companies don't use that as a trick because that keeps a lot of people from using methylene blue because they don't like the extreme dyeing of the mouth. Yeah. Why not just add vitamin C to all methylene blue?

Well, that's You know, so with Mitosen and the Lumitol Blue, one of the reasons that we, um, we add vitamin C to it, but we also add a number of polyphenols that help to kind of support that bio, um, you know, absorbing those photons in that, um, biomodulation. Um, so the other thing that is really cool is we make it into like a little bar so that you throw it in the back of your throat, you know, and you cut it to the dosage that you want, you throw it in the back of your throat and you drink something. And so, you have a really good absorption of methylene blue orally and primarily, you really want the stomach acid working on it. You don't really want it getting down into your intestines because it can be slightly irritating. You don't want your mouth turning blue. And so, these bars are really popular because people like to take it without turning their mouth blue.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, back to this article, let's take things one by one here. First of all, it cites the synthetic origins of methylene blue, meaning it was first synthesized back in the 1800s. I think it was a coal tar derivative. And, they refer to it as something called a xenobiotic saying that by it being a xenobiotic, it's foreign to life processes. And then, it eventually became adopted for medical use, I think for malaria in the early 1900s. And since that time, it's been used for a lot of things, a urinary tract antiseptic, a surgical dye. Nowadays, as you and I have talked about a lot, a nootropic for brain enhancement. But why is it that there would be concern over its synthetic origins? And are you concerned about something like that?

Well, I mean, I've dedicated my life and my career to natural approaches to health and well-being, being a naturopath and a chiropractor. And so this idea that it's a synthetic compound, at first blush, I had a problem with it. And I started to really look into the research and realize that just about all pharmaceutical medicines have an origin with petroleum, right? And so petroleum has— is actually— petroleum's natural and it's got an abundant amount of hydrocarbons. And these hydrocarbons and different organic compounds are used as building blocks to build more complex molecules. So it's— and it's also the, the, the stability of the molecules developed through this are very stable and you want that for something for a good shelf life. But to put it in the same, say, okay, since it's synthetic and since it's derived from petroleum, which is a lot of medicines people are using these days that are, does that equal toxicity? Does that mean that this is a negative for that molecule? And I would offer that it's not. And this is not true for everything. But at some point, we have to really look at the research and see how safe— it's over 100 years that this has been around and the safety record using methylene blue, especially under 2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. And really, most people can go up to 4, but there can be a slight—

So, under 2 milligrams per kilogram, just to contextualize that real quick. Yeah. I weigh about 80 kilograms. So, you're saying for a guy like me, I could use, well, like 160 milligrams of methylene blue?

Extremely safely without having to really worry about any side effects at all unless you have G6PD, which is a gene pathway. But actually, one thing that is really interesting is an individual that has that is not completely out of the they could still enjoy some of the benefits of methylene blue by taking it in its reduced form, which is leukomethylene blue. There's actually been some research showing that those individuals tolerate that really well.

Okay. So, the idea here with the actual synthetic nature of it, you described it as something coming out of the petroleum industry. I don't think a lot of people are familiar with this idea. What does that mean that a lot of medications come out of the petroleum industry? Like, how's that actually work?

Well, it was, um, the, the roots are with, um, Dale Carnegie and Rockefeller, right? And so Rockefeller was a big oil man, and they discovered that they could build a lot of chemistry with these building blocks. And so obviously Rockefeller was pretty excited about that, and, and because of that, he went and funded this huge shift that happened in our medical, primarily in the schools. There was 155 schools and what happened, they called the Flexner Report, right? They hired this guy Abraham Flexner who was against natural medicine to begin with, right? And he wrote this report that they took to Congress that basically was promoting science and science-based medicine, things that had studies, right? And so, all of these were basically pharmaceutical and that if schools were teaching things like chiropractic and herbology and homeopathy, then they wouldn't get the funding. And so, the medical schools literally went from 155 all the way down to like 30 schools. And, this is why to this day there's this bias against diet and exercise. I mean, medical doctors hardly take— I mean, like, even just like a couple hours of diet and exercise, um, because it's just a complete myopic, um, uh, interest in promoting the pharmaceutical industry, and they've done really well financially that way. So that's kind of where the roots are. But that's, you know, when you look at, um, all of the like 150,000 compounds that have been discovered, you know, since they've been building these, you know, different molecules, they've never found anything that does what methylene blue does. The fact that it goes and it works on all four complexes, it increase— improves photobiomodulation, it's antibacterial, antiviral, it can be beneficial against Lyme disease, it has this neuroprotective effect. The other thing that's really cool, a lot of research is looking at methylene blue for degenerative neurologic disease such that it helps to clear tau protein, right, through autophagy. And this is a big deal. Like with, with Alzheimer's, there's a buildup of these proteins in the brain, and they've actually shown that methylene blue helps the body clear these protein tangles out of the brain.

So there's, there's other concerns that they raise in this article, like serotonin syndrome. And I've heard that before that you're not supposed to take methylene blue if you're using, I believe, an SSRI because you could get some kind of potentially life-threatening condition caused by excessive serotonin activity in the nervous system. Is there anything to that claim? Yeah.

Well, it's a great question because it's one of the most commonly talked about contraindication and it's rooted in surgery where they were doing a thymectomy. So these individuals were having thymus glands removed surgically, and they would do very high doses very quickly of methylene blue IV. And I mean, we're talking like 500+ milligrams within like an hour IV with these people. And because methylene blue has an affinity to the mitochondria, that thymus gland would get really, really blue. So they went in for the surgery, they could see it very clearly to make sure that they got rid of all of that cancer— cancerous gland. And they found that the patients that were on SSRIs developed serotonin syndrome. And so after that happened, they made this global warning against SSRIs and methylene blue. But then afterwards, they started to really look at the data and the Mayo Clinic retracted the warning. And said it's just when you get this thymectomy that you need to be careful. And the, you know, like Canada took that warning, but our FDA maintains that warning. But really, I think what we really want to look at is all of the negative things that I've seen in all the research all involve high doses of methylene blue done IV, right? So if you're going to stay within like the 2 and, you know, if you're taking SSRIs, I would definitely be below 2 milligrams per kilogram. And even talk to your healthcare provider, right? I mean, this is just from the research. It looks to me like most healthcare providers, you know, if they do their homework on this, would agree, you know, that there seems to be a very strong safety track record with methylene blue. And individuals that might be concerned with the serotonin syndrome would definitely want to stay under that 2 milligrams per kilogram, maybe even a half a milligram per kilogram. But the bummer is, is that the people that are depressed could really use methylene blue, and it's a much better alternative for improving mood than SSRIs because it works on nitric oxide. And it's the negative nitric oxide, which is the inducible form of nitric oxide that you don't want a lot of that because it's very corrosive to your nervous system, to your cardiovascular system. And, and that is one of the reasons besides the SSRI. But it's not just serotonin that it improves, it's all neurotransmitters, dopamine and norepinephrine as well. So people generally feel really good. And when you improve your neurotransmitters and you feel good, this is when people make better decisions, right? They're going to get out of bed and they're going to go work out, you know, they're going to go and get cook that healthier meal. And, this is my experience is that when people's neurotransmitters are more balanced, they just tend to be healthier in other ways.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, I was just in Florida actually down in your neck of the woods speaking on a yacht. It was with this private group that hired me to come do health seminars and stuff like that on a yacht. I was handing out methylene blue like candy because we were all spending time in the sunlight. You talked about the interaction of photons of light particularly the red light spectrum with amping up methylene blue's ability to be able to help produce more ATP. And, people felt great. I mean, they love the idea that you could get kind of like a cup of coffee-free burst of feel-good energy. I think methylene blue and sunlight or methylene blue and red light is kind of like the turkey and cranberry of the energy kingdom and the feel-good kingdom. And, I'm a huge fan. It does kind of lead me to another question though, John. And, I was asked this when I was on that cruise. People were like, "Can I use this every day? Can I use it multiple times per day? Can I take it in the morning and go out in the sun and take it in the evening at the red light sauna?" What's the actual protocol as far as safe and effective use of it?

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. There is some thoughts that it could build up in the mitochondria and then clog the system. Because when you— it is— when you get into those higher dosages of methylene blue, it can start to have an opposite effect where it slows the mitochondria down a bit because it's too much oxidation and not enough conversion into that leukomethylene blue, which happens through our antioxidant capacities. Um, so, um, I would offer that it might be like every 10 days you might take a couple of days off. Um, but it's different for everybody. Some people, they take it for a couple of days and they feel better. If they take a day or two off, even after just a couple of days. So, I would suggest people experiment with how their body utilizes and metabolizes it, but definitely consider at the minimum every couple of weeks taking a few days off.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, similar to ozone, it has a little bit of an antibacterial effect and people say the same thing about ozone. Do you want to be careful with not to use too scientific of a term here, nuking your microbiome by using it excessively. I mean, could you get too clean? Could you turn yourself into kind of like an internal Bubble Boy who's got a weak immune system because you've destroyed a lot of the good and the bad bacteria in your gut with something like methylene blue?

Yeah, great question. So, one thing that's really interesting is that the way that methylene blue is an antimicrobial, is that when it gets into these different microbes, it actually release— it turns into and releases ozone and hydrogen peroxide. And this is the way our body naturally kills these microbes, and methylene blue has a way of getting in and doing that. There's a study that they were having rodents drink nothing but water with methylene blue. So, the way that they supplied the methylene blue is that all of their available drinking water was methylene blue. And I can imagine that some of that would get into to the lower part of the intestine. Now, keep in mind, you can't really look at rodent studies and, and just assume that it's going to be the same thing with humans. But I do think that, you know, there is some interesting thoughts that you really don't want methyl— methylene blue chronically in your large intestine. And this is where most of your populations of your good, you know, your microbiome, your good bacteria are. So that's why I don't think capsules are the best way to go, because a lot of times those capsules don't dissolve. And then we had— when we first launched Methylene Blue, we actually launched it in a suppository. You remember that?

I know, I was just thinking about that. I'm like, what about your suppositories?

Well, we still have it and there's still an application for it. Usually physicians use it to ramp up Methylene Blue in the blood and then do light therapies and so forth. So there's different protocols, but it's not something that I would recommend for the average person to do at home.

Okay, got this other article we were talking about on GreenMedInfo. They say it can cause severe hypertension when given in high doses like this intravenous bolus. You know, the SSRI issue you mentioned also triggered by something like an intravenous bolus. How much do you get from a methylene blue IV? Because I know you will do this sometimes at your clinic. I think I had one done at your clinic versus oral dosage. Like, how much are you mainlining into the system with an IV?

Well, we'll do anywhere from 150, sometimes even up towards 300 milligrams intravenously over an hour or hour and a half. And it does have a very high absorption orally. And so one might pause and step back and say, well, why are you using it intravenously if it has a great absorption? And the reason is because you're getting that high level in the blood over that short period of time. And then we take this fiber optic and put it actually into the vessel. We did this with you, I'm sure, a few times. And we irradiate the blood with a red light that's at 660 nanometers, which is the exact wavelength that methylene blue works. Photo— it's a— it's called photodynamic activity. And And so this is primarily something that we really want to target when we're wanting to really ramp up mitochondria effect in the blood. Like, say, if we're doing a stem cell infusion with a patient, or if we're looking for an antimicrobial effect, like somebody has really high Epstein-Barr or Lyme disease or Candida or something like that, it can be really effective.

Have you ever had people have these adverse effects that this article's talking about, like hypertension or anything else related to the IV versus the oral?

We monitor that pretty closely and we haven't seen that. Actually, you know, the methylene blue tends to relax blood vessels because it has an effect on nitric oxide. And, and so if anything, it, in the dosage that we typically use it, it's going to actually lower blood pressure a little bit.

How does that work to, to use light in the IV? Like, is it a needle that goes into your— I know you did it on me, but I don't remember. Does it go into your vasculature, this light via needle or something like that?

Yeah, it's a German technology and it's actually like a plastic catheter. And, a lot of doctors use catheters for IVs. And then, there's a tiny filament that's fed through that catheter and that catheter just sits right inside of the blood vessel. And, the blood traveling past that light just gets irradiated. So, it's like a photon bath for the blood. And then, the blood is getting saturated with the methylene blue. And so, you're having a very strong effect in the bloodstream with this kind of methylene blue with photobiomodulation.

Ben Greenfield: Huh. I actually read a book. I think it was a Russian translation because the English was a little bit difficult. The book was called "Human Photosynthesis" and it went into the idea that photons of light when they interact with melanin or pigment compounds in the bloodstream can cause a splitting of a water molecule. So, you get 2 H2O, I think, split into what would it be, 4 hydrogens and oxygen. And that mechanism then frees up electrons to be able to drive through the electron transport chain and produce more ATP causing us to, as the name of the book implies, photosynthesize kind of like a plant. The dark blacks of the plant kingdom were cited something like shilajit, methylene blue would be another example. But then, you also hear about these so-called phycocyanins that you would find things like spirulina or cyanobacteria algae. And, that article that we're talking about, it actually proposed that something like a blue pigment protein you'd find in something like spirulina is safer and arguably more effective than methylene blue as far as something you could consume and then pair with photobiomodulation, laser, red light, sunlight, et cetera, to get the effects that a lot of people look for from methylene blue. What do you think about the comparison between something like a phycocyanin and methylene blue?

Well, I love phycocyanin. In fact, that's in our Lumitol Blue. So, we add that in with our methylene blue products along with riboflavin and green tea extract and lutein and quercetin to kind of have that full spectrum. But, you know, the, the reality is I, I have searched high and low with psycho— phycocyanin, and I've not seen anything with regards to anything that we discussed with methylene blue. Like I said, they've never really found anything like methylene blue. And, you know, there's one point that I'd want to I'd want to make is that we live in a world where there is a lot of man-made stuff, right, that we have to like adapt to. I mean, think about like Lyme disease, you know, and like how that was developed in Lyme, Connecticut and Plum Island, right? It's a man-made bacteria, a spirochete. And then, and then we have COVID, you know, they, they, they've shown that that was made in a lab in Wuhan, right? So, and then there's all these man-made chemicals, right, that are getting into our body and hormone disruptors and It's just like this, this long list of like EMF, you know, there's light exposure in our circadian rhythm. We just haven't been able to adapt. So the fact that methylene blue is, is man-made, you know, it's like to me I'm thinking man-made problem, man-made problem. Well, we need a man-made solution, right? So I think that in a perfect world, if we were living out in the jungle or in the forest and we're eating healthy foods and we're living off the land, methylene blue probably wouldn't be something that you would need. But in today's world, I think that it's a really valuable tool. And to just throw it out as— I heard one person say that if you don't have a mitochondrial problem, then you don't want to take methylene blue. But I would offer probably 90-plus percent of all individuals. I mean, we— the United States is like, most people have a chronic disease, right? Most people have toxicity. You know, I'd say 90-plus percentage of people have some sort of deficiency within their mitochondria. And this is one of the reasons that when most people take it, they'll feel better.

When you were just giving that description, you said the Lyme is man-made. I don't think I've heard that before. Can you clarify what you mean by that?

Oh yeah, yeah. So when after, after World War II, we hired all of the Nazis that were doing biological warfare. They were studying this.

Who's we? Like the US government?

United States. Yeah, we— that was one of the things that we really went in and scooped up as many scientists as we possibly could that were Nazis. And that's one of the reasons I think that we've advanced so far. But one of, one of the stations that they set up was in Plum Island in Connecticut. And they've, they've really already, you know, they've proven that, that these, these were biological weapons that were developed on Plum Island. So that, you know, they looked at like, um, spirochetes and Lyme disease have been around a long, long time. I was watching this show, um, where it was like one of the most ancient human beings they found frozen in the Arctic, right? And they went in and they tested. They could actually test the blood and they found this guy had Lyme disease, like way back then, right? But the Lyme, that, that spirochete had a very, very tiny little DNA snippet where the DNA of Lyme today was like enormous compared to what it was back then. So it's not the same. It's, it's actually changed quite a bit. And this is most likely from what they did, these Nazis did at Plum Island.

So you're saying like they isolated an original natural form of Lyme and then somehow concentrated or made it more virulent?

Yeah. Yeah. So the idea was to implant— this is what Hitler had given as a, as a directive to these scientists was to place some sort of bacteria into a bug and then drop these bugs behind enemy lines such that the enemy would lose the will to fight. And this is well documented.

Where did you learn about this? Is there a book about this or something?

There is. And I wish I could tell you which one it was. I think there's probably more than one book.

All right. I got to dig into this because obviously Lyme is an issue that a lot of people deal with. And what you're saying is I mean, let's say I'm hunting and I get bit by a tick and I get Lyme. You're saying that the Lyme that I get is something that that tick could have potentially gotten from Plum Island and that it's way different than the type of Lyme my ancient ancestors might have been exposed to?

That's right.

Yeah. Are you saying ticks could technically be almost like a biological weapon?

Yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what the original design was. But they, but they got loose. That, like, when you read this book, they talk about how they, you know, they, they had all these systems in place if, like, something happened and somehow, um, one of the animals got loose, or I forget the actual story, but they tried to shut it down and they tried to eradicate it, and, and it was too late. Yeah, it's a whole story. It's really interesting. I wish I could bring more color to it.

If you had Lyme, you'd use methylene blue?

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's some nice research on methylene blue for Lyme and Bartonella. Actually, the third edition to Magic Bullet is coming out probably this week. It'll be on Amazon. And, we get into all kinds of really great rabbit holes with methylene blue. One of the additions that I wanted to add into the book was on this ProstaBlue Zone injection because we're using that.

Ben Greenfield: Give me details because I had this done. I can't say it was the most pleasant thing I've done and it was weird to be, pardon the expression, farting ozone out my dick after I had my prostate injected with methylene blue and ozone. We briefly touched on it, I think, the last time that we did a podcast. But tell me, tell me what you're about to say.

Oh, well, we have been very, very busy with, um, testing people's semen, right? And, um, so they're— the, the testing these days is so advanced, they call it next generation sequencing, where it actually tests up to 60,000 microbes. And, and this is why we're picking up on this, um, this idea that it's not in most men, it's not benign prostatic hypertrophy, which we're all expected for our prostate to grow at a certain rate as we get older, like it's normal, right? And that it's based on testosterone and this conversion to DHT and that it's an androgenic effect from the cells in the prostate. But I actually found some research that they, they were going in and they're saying when they really evaluated the— at a cellular level, there's, there's some inflammatory change happening within the prostate that seemed to be changing the androgenic receptors on. And they felt that it had to be some sort of an infection that they just weren't able to, like, test for, which we can now. And so most most of the men that we've tested have shown some level of infections. And so these reports come back and the reports show not only which microbes are infecting the prostate gland, but also what antibiotics work against it. So what we do is we take 1, 2, or even 3 antibiotics, and we also put methylene blue, and under ultrasound we inject the prostate. We do a series of 3 of these injections. I think we did one with you and you got great results. From what I remember, you were waking up occasionally to urinate?

Yeah, yeah. It brought my nighttime urination from 2 to 3 times per night down to 1.

Okay, that's excellent, right? And because you were here, we were doing an event, we never did the pretest, but it sounds to me like we must have eradicated some infections that were in there and then When you say infections, you're talking about like fungus or mold or like what exactly is in a man's prostate? You can see some fungus. Yeah, we've seen patients that have, have had fungus. You know, I mean, there, there really could be anything. The, the challenge that we have as men is that the prostate is like an encapsulated gland, and so we don't have really great circulation in there. So once we get an infection, it can sit in there and hide from our immune system. And so, we can also infect our loved ones. And oftentimes, and I think this was something that happened with you, is that that infection when we ejaculate can actually get into the woman as well and that could be cross-contaminated there.

Yeah, it's really weird because my wife used to get UTIs and yeast infections and she quit getting them after I did that procedure. I think I told you this on our last podcast. So, it's possible I had some type of contamination or fungal infection or mold or yeast or something in my prostate gland and I was passing that along to my partner during sex.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we actually— it's interesting, we did a pre and post with Luke's story, I think after maybe about the same time. I think he was here that weekend. And so, we actually had the data with him and he had a huge list of microbes and I mean, it literally went down to virtually nothing. It's a high bacterial load to like hardly any at all. And his symptoms reflected, you know, a similar benefit that you had. So, um, we had a case— listen to this— we had a case that we did an MRI, pre and post MRI, and the pre-MRI was suggesting that they had cancer. And it was like, I think about 3 months later, the, that lesion was completely gone. It was pretty wild. We've had a case that couldn't ejaculate, and then after we did the procedure, the patient started to ejaculate. So, I think it's a real big unmet need. It's the second leading cause of cancer in men over the age of 40. And that's one of the reasons I just got so interested in this. And we're going to start doing some research through my nonprofit, and we want to really gift this protocol to the world. So eventually, we're going to be teaching this to other doctors. But it works really well. So we, we kind of started talking about the protocol, but there's like a— there's a few things. So we inject it with a couple antibiotics to match based what we got on the test. Then, then we, we put methylene blue in there and a little bit of a numbing agent, and then we inject ozone. Okay. And then after that, we use this probe that then irradiates. And so we're using the methylene blue with light. And, that's basically a protocol we call Prosta Blue Zone. And, we can put a link where I have a more detailed article about the protocol in the shownotes.

Ben Greenfield: Now, if I wasn't sure that I needed to do this, is this test that you do for contamination of prostate gland something someone could order to their house and do to see if they might need a protocol like this? Because I know there's companies like Vibrant Wellness, for example, does some mycotoxin and mold panels. There's other urinary tests. Is there a test someone could do at home to see if they have these issues in their prostate gland before they decide to, you know, whatever, buy a plane ticket to Sarasota?

Yeah. Well, that's kind of how we operate. So, most of the patients that we treat do travel in. And so, before we have them come, we recommend that they do in the privacy of their own home, collect the semen sample and then we consult with—

Oh, it's semen, not a urine test?

Both semen and urine. Actually, both of those are kind of important to look at side by side.

Okay. But is this a test someone can buy themselves and do or you send it to them?

It's usually ordered through a doctor's office. So, it's We can put a link in the show notes for anybody that wants to order this test.

Okay. Yeah, send it to me, email it to me afterwards and I'll make sure it gets in the show notes because I think that'd be interesting for a lot of people to look into, a lot of men to look into. I want to shift focus here for the last part of our podcast, John, because you have had a very interesting past few months. I don't know if a lot of this is public knowledge at all, but you had a pretty significant injury. You were near the brink of death, I believe, at multiple points over the past several months. And, you also were able to use your knowledge of some of these more fringe biohacking or alternative medical protocols to manage what was going on. Yeah. So, so, so tell folks what was up.

Yeah, I had a pretty significant injury where I, I fell and I hit my head. I got a concussion and I— it was just the perfect fall and where I injured the nerves. So I wound up going to the hospital and having a surgery called compartment syndrome. Right. So I— that it's when it's when the pressure— you have an injury to your leg basically, and they, they make incisions to release that pressure. And after they did it, I asked them, "Can I get in a hyperbaric chamber?" And they're like, "No, there's no proof." And it was right around where the hurricanes were, so everybody was a little bit kind of chaotic. But I mean, I had Jason Sonners call the doctor that was working with me.

I had And then, Jason is the guy that runs the hyperbaric company. They make the soft shell hyperbaric I use. I believe you use as well, right, Jason? Yeah.

I mean, he's basically like a PhD in hyperbaric oxygen. And so, they're like, "It's not indicated," but compartment syndrome is actually one of the indications. So, this was at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. And, after being released from that hospital, I was dealing with this compartment syndrome, but what they did is they put something called a wound vac over these incisions. Do you know what a wound vac is? You heard that before? No. So it's like this— the plastic is wrapped and kind of glued around your skin, and then they, they stuff sponges into these, um, into these lesions, these wounds. And then there's a machine that's just constantly sucking, so it's like pulling like blood and nutrients from in your body out. And so it's kind of creating that flow. And what it does it starts to create some granular tissue is what— and they were, they were just trying to get it to heal, right? And I mean, I had this wound vac on for, um, boy, you know, nearly 3 months, Ben. But, you know, I couldn't feel my foot, um, I couldn't move my foot. And so after about 6 months, I had to have like a, a really serious talk with, um, with the surgeon. I got lucky though. After I left the, the one hospital, I went— I, I was referred to this doctor in Bradenton at Blake Hospital. His name is Dr. Van Vliet. He's a plastic surgeon, and I literally had 15 surgeries. This guy had to go in, remove all this necrotic tissue.

I mean, you, you sent me pictures, dude. Your leg looked like an alien. I mean, it was just like, it looked like beef jerky. Yeah, it was just strings of muscle hanging off of bone and flesh. Was that from an infection?

Yeah, I think partly, you know, the, the muscle just got necrotic, so it just started to die because it just didn't have the blood or nerve supply to it, and Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. It feels to me like my case was mismanaged. I mean, what a wake-up call being in the hospital and with someone like me that understands health and wellness and can ask all the right questions. I just really feel empathetic to people that don't. But it was very frustrating because in the hospital everything's so segregated, right? I mean, it's all siloed. Gastroenterologist, the infectious disease doctor, the internist, right? You have the neurologist, like, and they all come at different times. And, you know, that's the problem, I think, in allopathic medicine is there's no cohesiveness, right? And when I would bring up things that I knew were great solutions, you know, they either didn't know about it or their hands were tied because they could only use pharmaceutical routes, which again, that all goes back to that Flexner Report. If that never happened back in 1908, I think we would have a whole different type of hospital than we do now. But I asked the surgeon if I could get light therapy, laser or whatnot, and the guy said, "I've never heard of it." Literally, this is a surgeon that says, "I've never heard of light or laser therapy, and if it was something that was of any benefit, I would have heard about it." Well, that's not surprising.

I mean, I think a lot of doctors in a traditional medical education aren't taught about things like photobiomodulation. You know, they either find it out for themselves or just don't know about it.

Yeah, well, there's a, there's a huge body of research on the use of laser and light for healing tissues and so forth. And, um, but yeah, but needless to say, it was very frustrating to, to just be laying there in the hospital and not have not be able to execute a lot of the tools that I knew that would really help me.

How close did you get to anything like amputation or life-threatening sepsis or anything like that? Because I mean, from the photos I saw, it was, it was a significant injury.

Well, I had, I had kidney, kidney failure so that I went on dialysis and they were telling me that I would probably be on dialysis for the rest of my life. They also were telling me I'd need to have my leg amputated at the hip. Hip because I had a lot of damage and what's called rhabdomyolysis, which is death of muscle throughout my whole hip and leg.

That would have directly caused the stress in the kidneys, right? Because you have these, uh, muscle protein having to wind up in the kidneys for filtration.

Exactly. Yeah. So, um, one of the things that really helped me was I did a, um, an infusion with the stem cells, the X-Cells, that I think we used with you. And they literally snuck these into the hospital. I wasn't sure I was going to share this on the show or not, but you snuck stem cells into the hospital? Yeah, I had someone sneak stem cells. I had someone sneak peptides into the hospital. I had someone sneak melatonin and methylene blue. I was starting to pee blue in the catheter. The lady was like, "Oh, what's that?" I told her, "Well, I was drinking beet juice." I said, "It's just beet juice." Hey, so the stem cells, when you sneak those in, I mean, what were you doing, just injecting them? Yeah, well, yeah, I already had an IV in and, you know, I— one, maybe two weeks later, they came back and did kidney testing. They're like, "You don't need dialysis anymore." So I'm pretty sure that the stem cells pretty much cleared that up.

Oh, did you put them in the IV bag, the stem cells?

Actually, it was a push. So, it was in a large syringe and it was just slowly pushed into the blood vessel.

Wow. Okay. So, you're sneaking all these different modalities into the hospital and the only question that you got was about the blue pee?

No. I got into a little bit of trouble with the peptides because the peptides were syringes, right? Yeah. One of the friends that brought the peptides dropped a needle on the ground and the nurse picked it up and reported it and they're like, "Well, this isn't one of our needles." And so, they immediately thought I was administering drugs. They were concerned about whether it was heroin.

You mean recreational drugs?

Yeah, because they see it a lot. They see it in the hospital. I had to, you know, have a nice talk with them and I told them what was really going on. And, they told me that it's strictly forbidden. And so, we had to be more careful. I'm not going to say I stopped it, but I was definitely a lot more careful.

Yeah. And, what peptides were you using?

BCP and thymosin beta.

BPC, you mean BPC?

BPC, sorry. And I forget which combination for growth hormone. It was the growth hormone releasing peptide, I think 3 and 6 or 2 and 4.

Usually it's like a tesamorelin, ipamorelin, CJC combo.

Yeah, yeah. I was working with Matt Cook after I got out of the hospital and Matt had designed some peptide protocols for me and he was sending them out. He also had me on the SS31, and that's a mitochondrial peptide.

Yeah, yeah, that one's great. Were you using these new— I haven't done a podcast about them yet, but they're these preloaded peptide pens made by Vaselius where they just arrive and you turn the dial and inject rather than having to draw them up into an insulin syringe.

Yeah, that'd be really convenient. I'm not familiar. Okay. Yeah, I'm really grateful for Matt Cook for supporting me. He literally even didn't even charge me. Was like, "Brother." He just wanted to see me get better.

Yeah. Matt's got one of the biggest hearts in medicine. He's saved my ass quite a few times. I'm on the brink of illness and he'll ship me up something like thymosin alpha-1 and the next day I wake up just feeling fine. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good guy. Okay. So, you went through all of this and then What happened as far as the leg, as far as the, you know, getting discharged? Like, where are you at now?

Well, I had the leg amputated. And, I mean, this is a big reveal, Ben. I've been very secretive on my social media. So, anybody that knows me or has been following me, like, I've been on quite a journey in the last 7 months. And, it's been probably one of the most difficult painful, challenging situations of my life. And I had to make a big, big decision about whether I'm going to keep my leg or— they have such great prosthetics these days, right? And I'm a very active individual. I really wanted to get back to surfing and hiking. And the idea of continuing to try and— like a foot that you can't feel or move, they're saying, oh, we can fuse the foot. But there was one time where I stepped on something and my foot was bleeding and I took my sock off and it was like two of my toenails were practically ripped off. So, the idea of not feeling your foot, just how much damage you can create without knowing it. So, yeah, I know I made the right decision, right? So, I had my leg amputated 5 weeks ago. Tomorrow I actually go and get fit for my prosthetic for the first time. And I'd like to shout out Proteor, which is a company that makes prosthetics. They're actually sponsoring me. And my, my goal is because last year I went to Nazaré, which is the largest surfable wave on the planet in Portugal, and I got towed in by Garrett McNamara. And so my goal is next year I want to go to Nazaré and with a prosthetic leg get towed into a 40-foot wave like I did last year.

Wow. Is this a— this a below-the-knee amputation?

Yes.

Okay. Wow. How are you dealing with that mentally? I mean, it's got to be— I can't imagine. I mean, it has to be an odd experience to have that part of your body gone.

Yeah, it's very, very trippy. You know, like even like just getting up from laying down, you normally have that leverage of the weight of the foot. When you're sleeping, it's like, you know, my leg moves around so easily and quickly. It's like, because you don't have the weight, it's really hard to get used to. But I would say, Ben, there's a part of me in my heart that feels like this is my path, that this was meant to be, and it's for a purpose. And that purpose is to inspire people. And to inspire people that things can happen that might, in one person's perspective, be terrible, but making lemonade out of lemons, so to speak. I found that I've had such an outpouring from all of my friends and people like you. I mean, you were messaging me regularly and just giving, praying for me. Realizing how much amazing friends I have and the connections that I've had. Like Laird Hamilton is someone that I wound up connecting with after I got injured. And I mean, he's like FaceTiming me every morning or shout out to Laird Hamilton. You're an amazing human being. So the challenge has made such an impact where people become empathetic, their heart opens, and then it provides an opportunity for this really deep connection that I don't think I would have otherwise.

Now, are you actually back in practice now, like at your clinic?

I've actually been living here. I moved in to the clinic right after the hospital.

I guess that's convenient to live in your 20,000-square-foot biohacking facility when you're healing up something like that.

Well, you know, we built out those apartments. I can't remember whether you stayed here or not.

I think— Yeah, they were almost done when I was down there visiting you last time.

Yeah, but it's really a nice setup and we have two apartments, so I'm one of them. And it's been nice because I can kind of bop back and forth. And yeah, I've been working. We— anybody that calls the office, they'll say that, you know, I'm not, I'm not available, and we have a waiting list. I think the waiting list is several months now. Um, but I do intend on, once I get the prosthetic leg, starting to open up some, um, some limited, um, hours to see patients myself.

Yes, you still have your staff there working as well, right?

I got a great staff. Dr. Amanda McDonald's a DO. Dr. Alex Smithers is an MD and an acupuncturist, and they're just, I mean, just superstars. Dr. Alex has been with me for 15 years and Dr. Amanda for a few years, but they're really, really doing a great job.

Yeah. And, like I mentioned, that's like the Disneyland of biohacking down there. I know we don't have tons of time left, but are there any very cool new tools that you've found and added to the lineup?

Oh, man, I'm glad you asked that. I've been really into hypoxia and CO2 lately. And, there's a carbon dioxide inhaler that I've been really enjoying.

And, by the way, I have one. I inhale 7% carbon dioxide for about 5 to 7 minutes a day while I'm working at my desk.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I just did it earlier today, but like, I mean, what percentage are you breathing?

7%.

7? Yeah. So, you're really out of breath.

Yeah. Yeah, you get a little hypoxic, but then long-term effects is anxiolytic.

Yes, yes.

You feel this calming release of stress when you finish, kind of like you feel after a workout, like a release of stress. And then, you get a huge pump. There's big release of nitric oxide.

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. I recommend people do between 3% and 5%. 7% is like a nice heroic amount.

It's a little extreme, but I use Anders Ohlsen's device. I'll link to in the show notes. I think it's called the Carbohaler or something like that.

Yeah, yeah. So, we actually have rebranded that same inhaler with Mitozen. I think I call it the Mito Carbonator or something like that. But yeah, I'm really big in promoting it. We've actually been able to attach that machine to our intermittent hypoxic device.

The—

we call it HypoxiZen, which is this— this is the other thing I'm really into, is this Russian technology where it's, it's a device that moves between low and high oxygen. It's called intermittent hypoxic therapy. And the research on this out of Russia is unbelievable. And the idea is that you kind of— the same thing with carbon dioxide is it's a stressor, and that stressor enrolls these adaptive responses in the body that ultimately allow the body to have better oxygen absorption and utilization. And what I found was you can piggyback it onto different things, like with the, with the carbon dioxide, there's, there's like a port. And so while you're going through this, it's, it's using different gases, right? So not only are you doing the high and the low oxygen, but you're increasing the CO2. And I believe that that's an even— and then we're going to play around with even adding hydrogen gas as well.

Yeah. So, you're inducing a respiratory state of either hypoxia and elevated carbon dioxide or hyperoxia and elevated carbon dioxide.

Right, which would happen naturally if someone's doing extreme sports anyway. So, you're just mimicking this natural response. And, you know, I'm sorry, the vasodilation, I believe, and the benefits is more with CO2 versus nitric oxide, whereas I think the CO2 is activating nitric oxide, but CO2 in and of itself vasodilates and relaxes the smooth muscles of the blood vessels. So, I think that we're starting to understand that science a little bit better, and the idea of using carbon dioxide is becoming more and more— I'm hearing more and more people talk about it. We did it rectally a couple years ago here in Sarasota.

Yeah. You did do rectal CO2 on me. I can't get away from your clinic without some crazy tube going up some little used orifice, at least when it comes to tubes and gases and blues and ozones and things like that. So, John, we're running up short on time here, but I know you have the update to methylene blue. You got your clinic, Advanced Rejuvenation The update to the "Methylene Blue" book, I mean. I'm going to link to all that in the show notes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/BlueMan. If you're listening in, John's a good follow. He's an inspirational follow, obviously, with what he's gone through. So, I highly recommend that you not only check him out but check out the other podcasts we've done because, I mean, we take a deep dive into all sorts of crazy modalities. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/BlueMan. /blue-man are the show notes. And John, once again, this has been fascinating.

Yeah. Thanks for having me on your show again, Ben. It's always a pleasure. And I am going to start sharing my journey a little bit more on my Instagram, which is @drjohnlaurantz. And I'll be probably showing some images and talking a lot about the different modalities that I used to kind of heal myself. And like I said, I'm going to get fit for this new prosthetic tomorrow, and I'm videotaping it all along, so I've got the whole story documented.

Cool. All right, so Dr. John Laurence, good luck spelling that, but I'll link to in the show notes. Uh, and, uh, yeah, check him out, follow his journey. John, I'm proud of you, I'm inspired by you, and I really appreciate you coming on again.

All right, me too. Thanks, Ben.

Alright, folks. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. John Laurence signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com/BlueMan. Check out the latest edition of his new book on methylene blue, Magic Bullet, and his other works you can find on Amazon and on his website. And until next time, have an incredible week.

To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks, and content to become the most complete boundless version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

BenGreenfieldLife.com.

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