In recent experiments, researchers at the University of
Rochester Medical Center have found that the same blue food dye
known as the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG), which is found in
M&Ms and Gatorade, may reduce damage caused by spinal injuries.
This could be joyous news for sufferers of spinal injuries that
have doomed them to a life strapped to a wheelchair and may well
be the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Researchers at
the University of Rochester Medical Center found that when they
injected the blue dye into rats suffering spinal cord injuries,
the rodents were able to walk again, albeit with a limp. There
was one little, rather odd side affect; the mice temporarily
turned blue. The results of this amazing study, which was built
on research originally conducted by the same medical center some
six years ago, were published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. Original research efforts revealed that the
spinal cord was rich in a molecule called P2X7, which is also
known as “th