According to a report in Wired magazine, new research (that was a happy accident has) shown that a common blue food dye, when injected into rats that have suffered spinal cord injuries, can dramatically help the injured nerves heal.
The only downside is that the rats turn blue, Wired says. In humans, that might actually be kind of cool.
However — and this is a stupid side-effect of our market-based capitalist society — the researchers don’t know when they’ll be able to move on to the next stage of clinical trials:
Unfortunately, because blue food dye is so cheap, they’re not likely to find a drug company to sponsor the trials. “There’s no commercial interest because you can buy it by the pound,” Nedergaard said.
(Image from Takahiro Takano, University of Rochester Medical Center, via Wired)
Grant Hamilton
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