Catch up TV

Series 1: 5. Can blue dye make me smarter?

Stacey explores a trend that has racked up over 200 million online views worldwide - the use of methylene blue. It’s a textile dye that influencers claim can boost your brain power and gained worldwide notoriety when US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr appeared to put drops of it in his drink. \n\nStacey and Drs Alex and Nighat decide to do their own playful test to find out if it might work or if any perceived boost is better explained by the placebo effect. Intrigued by the origins of the trend, Stacey follows a digital trail that leads her to Cambridge University and 40 years of laboratory research that might, incredibly, see meth blue to be the inspiration for a new Alzheimer’s treatment.\n\nBack at the hub, Stacey shocks the doctors with online deepfakes created to get them to promote new trends and supplements to unsuspecting followers.

Source: BBC 1